Elder Mitchell's Mission to Tennessee: Elder Bednar's Visit

Happy Easter!

Buenos!!

We had quite the week here! First off the weather has been nuts. The first part of the week it was up to 80 degrees, and by the time we got to Sunday (the first day of spring) it snowed. Hopefully it will warm up again a little bit this week. The work is going pretty well here, we just haven't seen a whole lot of success yet, but we are working hard. We weren't able to meet with J this week, and he won't return any of our texts/calls. Other than that, we don't really have anyone else progressing right now, but we continue to find new and potential investigators every day. We found some interesting people this week. We've had two people tell us this week that America didn't exist during the times of the Bible, so obviously the Book of Mormon couldn't be true. Hmmmm...Sure...This week we met a lady named S who was reluctant at first to watch a two minute video about Easter, but twenty minutes later we left her with a Book of Mormon and committed her to read it. That's one of the things I love about Elder C, is that he has a burning testimony of the Book of Mormon. Even when people tell us that they're not really interested, he just starts telling them about the Book of Mormon anyway haha.

The members here are excited about doing missionary work, and we have two awesome ward mission leaders, Bro. B and Bro. J. We are having a lot more members come out with us, which has been good. On Tuesday, we went with the Cookeville bishop to visit a less-active family. The parents work on Sunday, but we are trying to arrange rides so that their daughters could come. On Saturday we went with Bro. T (one of Cookeville ward's bishopric members) out to Gainesboro way out in the country. We went and saw some less actives out there and one of them actually came to church this Sunday!

Let's see...On St. Patrick's day we didn't do much. We did bust out our green ties though. We had to get an oil change done on the car, so that took up a good chunk of the day. We got ourselves some mint milkshakes though, so that was fun.

The highlight of the week was definitely Saturday, because David A. Bednar came to our mission!!! We had to get up pretty early to be in Nashville at 7:00, but it was sooo worth it! It was such a privilege to be instructed by an Apostle of the Lord. We also had Elder Craig C. Christensen from the 70, and the area 70 Elder Meredith, but Elder Bednar pretty much ran most of the show. It was awesome, because he didn't really give a talk, but he just engaged us in a great discussion. Some things that I learned: Elder Bednar talked a lot about Agency. As Sons and Daughters of God, we are agents to act and not to be acted upon. He talked a lot about how sometimes we just wait to receive answers or help without doing anything. We need to just go and act, and the confirmations will come later. Also, when we make covenants, we are giving up our agency and we replace it with representative agency. People say, "Well, I'm free to choose," but we aren't. We are expected to do everything that would represent Christ. In addition to the idea of not being acted upon, Elder Bednar talked about how faith is a principle of action and power. A lot of times we pray for the power to act, but these prayers will never be answered. We need to act, and then we will receive the power. Overall, it was a great meeting, and the spirit was incredible. Afterwards, we all got to go up and shake hands with him, which was awesome. Elder Bednar truly is an Apostle, man it was awesome. Just awesome. Also, after the meeting I got to talk to a lot of old mission buddies, so that was fun.

Elder David A Bednar

Ok, whew, here we go, ponderizer. I figured I should do one for Easter, so Alma 22:14, "And since man had fallen he could not merit anything of himself; but the sufferings and death of Christ atone for their sins, through faith and repentance, and so forth; and that he breaketh the bands of death, that the grave shall have no victory, and that the sting of death should be swallowed up in the hopes of glory; and Aaron did expound all these things unto the king." Christ died, and was resurrected. And, because of that, we will all live again. It's as simple as that. Hope y’all have a great Easter!

Love,
Elder Mitchell