Life here at the MTC has gotten much better over the past few weeks. Although we are still working really hard, we (the district) have decided to not worry so much about the language and focus more on our investigators. We are going to have a great Christmas next week. Rumor is we are having a General Authority on our Sunday Devotional and someone high up on our Christmas Devotional...cross your fingers for President Monson! We had a really great devotional from one Elder C. Scott Grow of the Seventy. His wife told a great story of a great family with a father that chose to ignore the testimonies of his children. He kept wanting to see a miracle, to see a sign. He said " I can turn to any scripture and prove to you that it is wrong." He turned to Alma 30: 44... This just goes to show the Lord has a sense of humor. Elder Grow then gets up and talks about the 4 requisites to teaching by the Spirit.
1. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Diligently seek faith out, faith is dependent on our studies. He later goes on to share Ether 12: 5,16,18,19. He states that, when you set goals you need to set them with your eyes toward faith.
2.Obedience. D&C 58: 42-44. He talked about the 2060 stripling warriors and how they followed every command of Ammon and how not a single one of them perished in the battle in which they were grossly outnumbered. They were entirely obedient to their leader and to their God. He goes on to give D&C 82:10 followed by a story on an Elder that was in South America. His mission president told him to pray and fast when making his monthly goals. When he was done, he came up with a number of 23. His mission president thought it was high, but just amused the Elder. The Elder was then given to his first companion, what I didn't tell you before, was that he had only been in the field for 1 month and couldn't even speak the language. His trainer also told him that the number was unreachable in this mission. At the end of the month the mission president was receiving all of the numbers from the missionaries. This particular Elder called the President and informed him they had not yet reached their monthly goal. The mission president wasn't surprised, and then the missionary said " but we have 3 more baptisms after this call which will make our monthly total 23. This missionary followed the promptings of the Lord and worked his hardest even after being told that the number was unreachable. He was blessed for being 100% Obedient.
3.Sacrifice. Knowledge is always obtained by sacrifice. D&C 97:8. Elder Grow said something that was really cool. He said that the only thing that we can truly give to the Lord, that is 100% ours is our agency. Once we decide that we will sacrifice ourselves to the Lord, he will undoubtedly bless us beyond our capacity to receive it. Everyone knows how hard it is to do something that we don't like to do. It goes against our nature to put others before ourselves. But even after Christ suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane, he took time to heal the soldier's ear. When we decide to sacrifice, we determine our entire life.
4.Revelation. D&C 8:1-3. Follow the Spirit so you can teach by the Spirit. Alma 17:3 and Alma 26:22. He told us simply that "the Lord has prepared souls, Find them."
All the above mentioned are the keys to a great missionary. D&C 65:2-6. For anyone else who wants some great material, read the last talk by Bruce R. McConkie.
Love you all and thank you so much for taking the time to read just a few of the things that I find great here at the MTC. I'll try and report on the Devotionals next week.
-Elder Ormsby
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