Summer here has ended and everyone is going back to school. This is great news for us in regards to teaching families with small children, but is terrible for trying to teach our young adult investigators. This week I've been trying to be like the Prophet Mormon. I'll explain that though in a little bit as always.
This week we had Stake conference, which was pretty cool. The speakers here focused on how parents can help teach their children correct gospel principles so that they can gain a strong testimony of the truths of the Gospel. The cool part though was that I got to direct the stake choir and congregation.
Speaking of this, I've learned that planning doesn't mean the same thing here as it does in the states. This choir that I directed was made entirely of the missionaries in the stake, and we were asked two weeks before. We didn't know what songs we were going to sing though until one week before, and given the missionary schedule, we only got to practice twice. Also, during our second/last practice, we were asked to perform an additional number. Long story short, I learned that the Lord's work does extend to choir rehearsals, when in doubt about how to make a song sound cooler, just repeat the last phrase with a retardando, and tone deafness is a chronic illness that is running rampant in Mexico. The important thing to focus on though is my first point in that the Lord's hand is in all parts of his gospel, including missionary choirs. I say this because I really don't have any other idea how we were able to pull this off in such a short time.
As I said earlier, I've been trying to be like Mormon. I say its because I just finished my faith edition to my Elder Bednar Library, and have recently been studying his epistle in Moroni 7, which talks about faith, hope and charity. I've found in my personal experience that many people find this to be a confusing part of the Book of Mormon, given that when trying to analyze all three of these points, people often think that they are all interdependent upon the other, and that one can't have one of these traits without the other two. This assumption of course makes it difficult to utilize this scripture to teach about either three of these traits without leading some one to believe that their faith is inadequate due to a lack of charity - or some other similar problem. By studying only faith though, it is easy to tell that this isn't the case at all. Rather, the confusion lies in Moroni's presentation of the epistle.
In Mormon 7, nearly all of the chapter is dedicated to the topic of faith. He only briefly mentions hope, more specifically what to hope for, and then talks about the blessings of charity. Based on this structure, it is easy to see that the main focus of Mormon's epistle is to talk abut faith, and how faith leads us to receive the gift of charity.
To better explain this, I'll use an example and follow the same train of thought used by Mormon.
Let's say that someone is about to receive a priesthood blessing to be healed from an illness. We all know that for this to work, the recipient must have faith in the healing power of Christ. This faith is expressed by actions, which could just simply mean to ask for a blessing. If we have faith, and our faith is properly placed in Christ, then we must have a hope for the power of his resurrection, and the power of his atonement. After all, Christ has the power to forgive sin and heal infirmities through the power of his infinite atonement, which without we would all be a lost and fallen race, subject to the whims of the devil for all eternity. But through the power of Christ, we can have a hope for a better life, free from sin in the presence of God.
Now, what Mormon fails to talk about in this chapter is that our faith in Christ, and hope for his atonement will lead us to repentance and baptism to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. However, this part of the doctrine could be explained in his need to be meek. Or in other words, to rely wholly on the merits of Christ as taught by Paul.
The power of repentance, will eventually change us from a carnal and devilish person, the natural man, into someone that seeks after the things of righteousness, or in other words, a disciple of Christ. In other words, what Mormon is stressing here is that true discipleship will lead to a change of heart and charity, which is the pure love of Christ.
In other words, to call ourselves disciples of Christ, we must have faith in his power and hope in his atonement. These will lead to a true conversion in Christ which will lead to the development of Christ like attributes including charity, which is the greatest of all. If we aren't exercising our faith unto hope and repentance so as to develop Christ like attributes, we can't call ourselves by His name.
That's all for now
Elder Gooden
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