This week I read the talk "Truly Good and without Guile" by Elder Ringwood from the last session of general conference. It made me think of one of the sisters in our ward, Hermana Torres. She´s an old lady that lives alone. I´m not sure if she´s a widow or not. But she´s quite possibly the most converted person in the ward. She always goes to church despite physical limitations that come with age. She always reads the scriptures. She always does her family home evenings, even though it´s usually just her alone. She goes to the temple regularly. She tries to do her family history even though she doesn´t know how. She fasts and pays a fast offering. Basically, she is truly good and without guile.
I realize that I´m pretty far away from that. I lack much. But "the good new of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that the desires of our hearts can be transformed and our motives can be educated and refined.
We do that by making and keeping covenants with God. When we got baptized we started the process of converting ourselves into new creatures and each time we take the sacrament we take a step closer.
In Doctrine and Covenants it states that "in the ordinances thereof the power of Godliness is manifest." The power of the atonement is manifest in our lives as we participate worthily in ordinances of the priesthood: baptism, confirmation, the sacrament, temple ordinances on behalf of ourselves and our ancestors. It´s a process.
I feel like the mission is a special time we have been given in order to further that process of conversion. We are able to focus all of our time on helping others enter into covenants with God and receive those ordinances. I´d say that focus definitely has an effect on us. I´d say that family history has the same effect on us.
Answers to questions:
1. How do we find new investigators?
We talk to everyone and we ask everyone for referrals. We don´t really tract. But someone will give us a referral, we find them and knock on their door. Even if they don´t receive us, we´ll ask them for referral. Then we look for the referrals that they give to us and do the same thing.
2. Why do I think new investigators is most important?
Like it says in Doctrine and Covenants section 4, the field is white and ready for the harvested. Our main purpose as missionaries is not to plant seeds. We are here to harvest. We need to find the people who are already prepared, the chosen of the Lord. So we need to find a lot of investigators. Let´s say in one week we find 12 new investigators. Of those 12, maybe 2 will keep there commitments and progress. Because our time is so limited, we stop visiting the 10 that don´t progress, keep visiting the 2 that do progress and find 12 more. So in order to find the prepared people, we need to find a lot of investigators.
There were more questions but I´m just about out of time.
I attached a picture of me directing a missionary choir. We sang at a recent stake conference. The class I took at BYU has really come in handy. At one point I used both hands to conduct and everyone was really amazed at that. I don´t think they´d seen anything like it before.
Well, I love you all!
Elder Hilton
No comments:
Post a Comment