Surprise! Our mission was visited by a living day Apostle! We took a trip to Twin Falls for a mission conference on Saturday to hear from Elder M Russell Ballard. Boy, he was a lot shorter than I thought, but spiritually powerful none the less! Accompanying Elder Ballard were Elder Nash and Elder Allen of the Seventy.
To start off the conference Elder Nash asked us two questions, "Why
do we wear the missionary name tag?" and "If Christ were hear in Twin
Falls, what would he be doing right now?" He then turned to 3 Nephi
chapter 11 and gave a short training. From what the scriptures tell us,
Christ would be doing the same thing we are just way more effectively.
Inviting people to come unto Him, believe in Him, and be baptized in His
name. That was a great boost in faith for us knowing that we as
missionaries of the Lord Jesus Christ are doing the very same thing He
would do if He were here.
Elder Ballard then gave us a discourse
on how our power in teaching comes from faith and an underlying
knowledge of the gospel. He gave us counsel to "Everyday wake up on time
and enthused about the work you are going to do today, bring that
enthusiasm into your studies." This strengthens my testimony
that knowledge of the scriptures will help us effectively share the
gospel with others. If we take the example of Apollos in the Acts, if we
learn from the Holy Ghost in our studies "the way of God more
perfectly", then we will be able to "mightily convince
[people]...shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ." (see Acts
18:24-28). Elder Ballard gave us oodles of great council in which I'll
sum up with these statements.
- In order to put off the natural man, we must lose ourselves in the service of others.
- Christ is as close as we'll allow Him to be.
- We are representatives of Jesus Christ. We do what He would do and say what He would say. This includes what and how we teach as well as our attitude and appearance.
It was a great Mission conference and fun of seeing all the elders and sisters in the mission. We
are still seeing success here in Burley. Slowly but surely people are
making their hearts open to believing in Christ fully and being baptized
in His name. Ron Heisinger told us this week that he has been able to
see how Heavenly Father has put certain people in his path and in his
life to bring he and Shirley to the point that they are at right now.
They simply love church and all the activities that are going on, they
love reading the Book of Mormon and are in Alma chapter 18, and they
are preparing to be baptized here in February. I could not find such
great people anywhere else in the world!
We are just about done getting all the plans for our Musical
fireside ready and are super excited about it! For all those who see
this in Southern Idaho YOU are invited! Feb. 8th at 7:00 pm here in
Burley at the Unity church building. 275 S. 250 E Burley, ID 83318.
It'll be a blast with cookies and lemonade. :)
Well that's it from here! I am hoping to record the musical numbers
at the fireside to share on YouTube but we'll see what happens. TAKE
LUCK!
-Elder Howard
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