This week I´ve been trying to be like Abinadi. No, I´ve not been threatened with death by fire, and no, I´ve not convinced someone to start baptizing thousands of people. I probably won´t even really celebrate Thanksgiving. More on all of this later though.
This week we had zone conference, 18 new investigators, and it was the second to last week of this transfer. For all I know, I´ll be writing from Los Mochis next week, but until then, I´ve still got plenty of work to do here in Bamoa. For starters, President Myers decided to focus on the importance o finding this week. In layman's terms, this translates into the least enjoyable time for a missionary if all you can do is knock on doors. Because of this, many missionaries like to fill their time with appointments with investigators, who may or may not be progressing, and trying to do anything else other than contact if possible. This is why this last zone conference was dedicated to the various ways that we can contact, and why contacting is so important. Put plainly, it´s that for every 27 new investigators that we find, statistically speaking, three of them end up going to church. and of those three that go to church, only one of them end up getting baptized. So, statistically speaking, if we don´t find a ton of people in our missions to teach, and make sure that we use our time wisely with them, we´ll never get to baptize. So, the invitation was to redouble our contacting efforts and TALK WITH EVERYONE!!!
We also focused a lot on the importance of the Sabbath, and President and Hermana Myers shared something that I find very interesting. It´s that one of the most fundamental ways that we can see if we are true followers of Christ or not is if we keep the Sabbath day holy. Not only is it an outward expression of our inner commitment to God, but that an apostle of the lord has said(this was back in about 1915, so I´m not entirely sure but I think it was from Joseph R Snow) that whether or not we sanctify the Sabbath, shows if our commitment to Christ is real, or if his sacrifice means little or nothing to us. Strong but true words.
This translated over well to our week with finding new people. 18 new investigators was a new personal best for one week, we even found a family of four that were able to start recognizing the spirit after the opening prayer. With a little luck, we can get a baptism within a month with them.
By the way, for everyone that saw the photo of the giant spider from last week´s email, part two of that story ended this week. we came home one night, and we found it in the bathroom spread out over the entire bathroom sink. after learning that the spider was really fast, and that it is immune to cockroach killing insecticide, I finally got him with the end of my shoe. Photos of that will come in next week.
As I said, this week, I´ve been trying to be like Abinadi. As a child I always looked up to Abinadi for his boldness and plainness. Faced with the prospect of certain death, he chose to not only bear his testimony of the Gospel, but clearly plainly point our the errors of their ways repeatedly. The most important thing though is that he always brought things back to Christ.
In the field, and for members of the church, we often have a fear of sharing what we know to be true. We find it difficult to always take advantage of the moments God gives us each day to represent Him or to share a part of his gospel. We close our mouths out of fear of a negative response or rejection. For these feelings, I´ve found that the perfect remedy is found in Doctrine and Covenants 3:6-10: "And behold, how oft you have transgressed the commandments and the laws of God, and have gone on in the persuasions of men. For, behold, you should not have feared man more than God. Although men set at naught the counsels of God, and despise his words- Yet you should have been faithful; and he would have extended his arm and supported you against all the fiery darts of the adversary; and he would have been with you in every time of trouble. Behold, thou art (inset name here), and thou wast chosen to do the work of the Lord, but because of transgression, if thou art not aware thou wilt fall. But remember, God is merciful; therefore, repent of that which thou hast done which is contrary to the commandment which I gave you, and thou art still chosen, and art again called to the work"
The fact of the matter is that everyone is called to the work. We all are given opportunities to help strengthen the Kingdom of God. And all of us have the chance to receive personal revelation to help us in this work. and if we chose to love God more than we fear men, we will have success.
Now, I know that I´m going a little bit out of order in how I normally write these things. Normally, I explain how I´m trying to be like someone and then I have the big take home part of my emails. This one is in a bit of a reversed order. But the big thing that I noticed is that there is power in boldness. I remember that it was nearly two months ago when a reference took my softspokenness for timidness, and that made me never want to talk quietly again. the desire to not be called timid led me to be more bold in my invitations, and the bolder my invitation have gotten, the more ready I feel the spirit is to help me in this work. Maybe it might offend some people at times, but I´ve not been called to teach the gospel of itching ears. And like every missionary likes to say in the mission, if I die out here, that´s a guarantied exaltation. In all seriousness though, I´ve found that it´s always been much better to be bold and active in the missionary work than to be timid and passive.
That´s all for now,
Elder Gooden
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