Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Hastening the Work of Salvation

Hey Everyone!

Just a bit of information about my new companion, Elder Gardner.  Elder Gardner is from Kent England which is right outside of London about a thirty minute train ride from Kent to London.  He has been out serving for 18 months or so.  My mom had asked about the cleanliness of myself and my companions, so here is the truth for good or bad.  The flats we have kept pretty clean.  Elder Davis, my first companion, was good about picking up his things but not doing his dishes.  Elder Larsen my next companion was really good at keeping the bathroom and bedroom clean and mold free.  But was horrid at picking things up anywhere else in the flat.  I have not had to many OCD cleaning moments maybe once a month.  Elder Gardner and I keep a pretty clean flat.  I can stand a little clutter but after a little bit I go and clean for a couple hours.  I always try to leave the flat spotless when we leave for the day, but the mold in the bathroom is bad over here.  But I am always on top of it getting it off and bleaching it right away.

Well on to this past week, it has been a fun one.  Tuesday started off pretty slow.  We had a appointment with an investigator.  So we walked all the way up to his place and when we got there, there was a note on the door canceling.  So that pretty much messed up the rest of the day.  In England, we can't track before noon or do any finding.  People get very mad when you knock on their door before noon.  So we passed out fliers for a charity event that was being held at the Church.  The member running the event wanted us to go in service cloths and no tags.  It was a coffee morning.  We where not quite sure if we should go with no tags but as we looked more closely at the flier it had coffee on it so no tags it was.

Wednesday we had District Meeting.  We have it in Evesham.  The cool thing was that President decided to show up to this one.  It was a very good meeting and we talked about how if we are bold committing people to do things we can have more success.  It was a really cool thing to hear.  We also had Ward football.  Once a week the Ward rents a hall that we play indoor football in.  I can't remember the last time I played football, maybe my 9th grade year in school.  But I scored many goals.

Thursday was some stopped by some people that we have been working with and then headed sign language lessons.  The lesson went really good.  I am slowly but surely getting the hang of signing.  But at the end of the lesson the man teaching it picked me, Elder Nielsen, to say the closing prayer.  I was a little scared to say the least.  So I started to sign the prayer and completely messed up so I started again.  Signing a prayer is really hard.  You have to think about what you want to say.  Then say it while you are trying to figure out the sign for the words you are saying.  Probably one of the shortest prayers I have given in a long time.

Friday was just planning for the rest of the week and going to the charity event.

Saturday was a fun day.  We have a list of less active members that we have been asked to visit see if they are still living at that address and if they are interested in returning to Church.  We did that most of the morning and then we had a Ward party.  We played some different quiz games.  The first quiz was movie still.  We saw a picture of a scene from a movie and had to name the movie and if you could the year.  The Elders where really good at that portion of the game.  The next portion of the game was a "general" knowledge quiz.  It was NOT a general knowledge quiz to this American.  We were shone a picture of an event and we had to know who, where, why, and the date of the event.  I knew none of them.  But learned a lot and had a great time.

Sunday was Church.  The Missionaries did the lesson because it was 5th Sunday.  We did a lesson on the Work of Salvation broadcast.  It went really well.  We had many members say they where going to go home and watch the broadcast on lds.org.  Link here Hastening the Work and Salvation.  But it was a good Sunday.

We have been talking about Magnifying our Callings and have had many discussions.  As Missionaries at the end of the day we feel like we should have done more.  But I guess at the end of the day the Lord knows what we have done and what we still need to do.  So I guess that the whole thing about magnifying our callings is to realize that we are going to fall short of the mark and try our best to do the best that we can do.  That has been one of the things that I have had to work on.  I can be a little OCD about things and I have realized that some days are worse than others.  In Preach My Gospel it talks about how we should rely on the Spirit.  And then turns around and says that to have the desire to be lead by the Spirit all the time is unrighteous.  One thing I have learned about the Spirit is that most of the time just doing what we naturally would do is the Spirit guiding us to some degree.  President Hinckley said that "after all is said and done if it persuaded you to be better or the outcome was good it is the Spirit".

I come to love this Gospel more every day as I study and try to tell people about it.  Have a great week.

Love,

Elder Nielsen

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