We had another great week last week. Our week was full of highlights and spiritual experiences.
Sister Kristine and Sister Chat attended church again on Sunday. They are still keeping our commitments and progressing, and do not have any concerns or problems. They have many fellowshipping friends at church and near their homes. Brother Richard and his wife Sister Jess attended church for the first time yesterday. Brother Richard is a house contractor, and is sometimes required to work on Sunday. However, yesterday he had a day off and was able to come to church. Richard has been reading the Book of Mormon and is currently in 1 Nephi 14. He has accepted a baptismal date and he really wants to start attending church weekly in order to prepare for his baptism.
We have many new investigators that are right on the verge of progressing. They are reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know if it is true. They have not attended church yet, however, many of them committed to come to church this upcoming Sunday. We are continually finding and teaching new investigators, as well as dropping the investigators that do not show signs of progression.
Throughout the past three weeks, in preparation for our mission conference, I have study a lot about faith. Normally, I would define faith as a belief or hope in things that are not seen, which are true. However, I learned that faith is a broader and deeper subject than I originally thought. Faith is the first principle in revealed religion and is the foundation of all righteousness. Faith is also a principle of action in all intelligent beings (Faith without works is dead) . Faith is a form of power that we can use in our daily lives. The opposite of faith is fear and doubt, when we stop or no longer act we no longer show our faith. Our faith causes us to act and perform righteous deeds, when we do good and perform righteous deeds God blesses us, when we recognize that God is blessing us for our righteous deeds our is faith strengthened and we have a stronger desire to be obedient. Miracles are wrought by faith. Thus, if we strengthen our faith the number of miracles we perform will also increase in number. In order to have success and witness and perform many miracles in this area, I must strengthen my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
On Thursday, we had our Mission Conference! ( we sat in the very front row, thanks Elder Peterson!) It was a wonderful and life changing experience. It was honestly not what I was expecting, Elder Bednar did give talk, instead, he just a large group discussion/question&answer for 3 hours. It is hard explain everything he taught in our discussion, but I will give you a little summary.
1. We are agents not objects. We need to act for ourselves(2 Nephi 2:26 D&C 29)
2. Our church has some bad traditions. Ex. playing "guess what is in my head" while teaching lessons at church. Instead of asking thought provoking questions to the listeners we tend to ask questions with one specific answer that we are looking for. Ex. Why should we go to church? (the answer you want to hear: Sacrament), We need to ask questions with no definite right or wrong answer.
3. We should never say "Please bless those that were not here this week that they will be able to come next week." BAD! Faith without works. That shows no faith. We should go out and find them and bring them to church.
4. Our church talks too much. We need to be doers and need to act. Talking does not show faith, acting does.
5. I learned soooo much! It was great!
He is so intelligent. His answers to all the questions were so simple, but were still right on the money. He truly is a representative of Jesus Christ.
I wish I had more time to write what I learned..,
Overall, it has been another successful week!
take care! Have a wonderful week!
Nagmamal,
Elder Nielsen
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