The Power of Charity

The District

So many blessings this week and I don't think I can come close to writing all of them down! Yesterday morning Elder Holland came and spoke to our mission. I think he was really tired so it was very nice of him to come. He talked about missions, about how they should be eternally consequential. He posed the question, "if this is all true then why aren't people lining up to be baptized? Why is a mission so hard?" His answer was that salvation is not a cheap experience. Why should it be easy for you if it was NEVER easy for the living Son of God? The road to salvation always goes through Gethsemane. After he spoke he shook all of our hands as we walked out of the theater. What a privileged it was to be in the same room as an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. It certainly doesn't happen everyday.

Oh, next transfer (starting tomorrow) Sister Bat-ulzii and I will still be companions and I will be a district leader.

We had a Visitors' Center training this week by people from the mission department and it was truly eye opening. The biggest message that I got from the training is that love trumps all. Love is more important than what you say or where you take people on a tour. One of the people giving the training told that when we meet someone we should ask ourselves, "do I love this person enough to begin teaching?" That certainly changed my ideas about when and what I should teach. Here I've felt a lot of pressure to produce referrals and to have excellent teaching skills so that I can be a more persuasive teacher. Those things are important, but that is not what this is about. This is about helping people come closer to Christ and receiving a remission of their sins, not about referrals. These were all things that I knew, but it was so nice to hear it from an authoritative source to back up the way that I was feeling. So since then Sister Bat-ulzii and I have had much more fun on the square really getting to know people and love them.

This past Sunday morning we walked into the North Visitors' Center and Sister Nakajima asked us if we were available for a tour, and of course we were, so we took around a wonderful couple from Houston, TX. May and Tee were passing through Temple Square on vacation and they were flying home that day. We walked around Temple Square with them and I was really trying to focus on getting to know them and what is important to them rather than thinking about what story I should share. As a consequence we didn't teach much at all. We found out that they are expecting their first child and they're really happy about that. So we showed them the Temple model and we focused our tour on how important family is and how the gospel can bless our families. We finished the tour at a kiosk that has clips from President Monson's past talks about the family. The Spirit was really strong and we invited them to find out for themselves how the gospel can bless their family. I could see the change in their eyes and they wanted to have missionaries come and share more with them. I'm so excited to follow-up with them and help them to progress.

We also took Jose from Brasil on a "walking lesson" on Temple Square. We tried the same approach again: don't teach too much but find out what is really important to him and then teach to his needs. He was on a long 6-week trip across America and we found out that he was divorced but absolutely loves his two daughters. Family is the most important thing to him (I'm sensing a general theme here on Temple Square ) so we tried to focus our teaching on that. I was surprised at how little we actually shared about facts, history, and doctrine. We didn't go into depth about how Joseph Smith was called as a prophet or where the Book of Mormon came from or how the temple was built. I think that all of the worth-while teaching was done by the Spirit. We finished our tour in God's Plan and we could tell that it touched him deeply. At the end Sister Bat-ulzii's testimony is really what he needed to hear. She talked about her father and how he is just like Jose--so kind and loving and cares very much about his family--but she said that he is just missing one thing, a knowledge of how his family can be together forever. After Sister Bat-ulzii had shared all that she could I told Jose that how to have an eternal family is not one of God's mysteries, it has be revealed again through a living prophet and he can have that too. I invited him to meet with missionaries to learn how he could have that and that is what he wanted. 

I just love being here on Temple Square and having teaching moments like these. They don't happen everyday, but I know that they are part of God's plan for these people that we meet here. What a blessing it is to play this role in people's lives. I hope that I don't ever forget how sweet the gospel really is.