Well, this week was interesting. This week our teaching pool pretty much bottomed out on us. We've had a lot of challenges come up with some of our top people, and we've been dropping a lot of people too. Lately we've been trying just to find, find, find, and this week we just didn't have much luck with it. It was one of those occasional reminders that missionary work is HARD. It's hard work, it really is. But, it's the Lord's work, so it's worth it. We've always had a tendency to bounce back after hard weeks, so I'm excited to see what the Lord has in store for us this week!
One bright spot this week was our lesson with J. He was complaining that God never seems to answer his prayers. Turns out J had been praying for the wrong things. Many of is pray like we are objects to be acted upon, instead of agents with the capacity to act. Instead of praying for God to change our circumstances, we must pray for the strength to impact our circumstances. It goes back to the fact that there is enabling power in the atonement of Jesus Christ. If we will ask God to give us the power to change our circumstances, God will hear and answer those prayers. Finally at the end of the lesson, it was like a light clicked for J; it was awesome.
My ponderizer this week is 1 Nephi 7:17 which says, "But it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, according to my faith which is in thee, wilt thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren; yea, even give me strength that I may burst these bands with which I am bound." On one of their journeys in the wilderness, Nephi's rebellious brothers tied him up, and left him to die. I think many of us in this situation probably would have prayed saying something like, "Dear God, please get me out of this! Can you make these bands just disappear?" But Nephi prayed that he would have the strength to change his own circumstances. The bands (or the trials) were not removed, but Nephi was blessed with power. He broke the bands, and was delivered from his bretheren. Let us all pray as agents that can act, instead of being objects waiting to be acted upon. I love you all! I hope y'all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Mitchell
(Sorry, I didn't take any pictures this week)
No comments:
Post a Comment