Elder Tanner's letter 1/26/2015

Dear Family,

 

This week was a fantastic week!  We taught a good lesson to an 8 year old girl about to be baptized on Monday which was fun.

Tuesday was our zone conference and that was absolutely amazing.  I learned soo much. and also I learned things that I didn't really notice I needed to work on particularly working with members.  I didn't really know that my pre-dinner, mid dinner conversations were a little less then "consecrated to missionary work".  Now with the vision I have been given in zone conference, we have been keeping the conversation topics about the gospel and missionary work which has had a dramatic influence on the lesson afterwards.  The lesson has been much more powerful as we have thought about and prepared a lesson each day this week.  We have President Ames's  vision to thank for increasing our own.

Quick investigator update:  One of our investigators has been really sick this week he was actually admitted into the hospital this past Thursday.  We have been praying for him and asked our zoneleaders to have our zone pray for him, so he's doing a lot better his mom said.  What is really cool though, is we told our bishop and he said he would take the priests down to the hospital on Wednesday and visit him which is a great idea and I'm really glad he is willing to do that.

We recently found a new investigating family.  They are pretty young with 2 kids.  The wife feels the need to be "rebaptized" and the husband has been really interested in the doctrines of the church and how everything seems to be "lining up" so this next lesson is going to be solely about the Holy Ghost which we are really excited for.  Our last lesson was really powerful in that Elder Jacobson and I bore our conversion stories about gaining our testimonies of the book of Mormon.

Sadly, we weren't able to get a lesson with our new investigator this week.  We had an appointment scheduled for a week in advance that didn't work out and they weren't able to make it to church. :/

We stopped by the home of one of our older investigators.  They are a LA/PM and she really wants him to come to church and feel the spirit.  She actually was brought to tears there on the doorstep when she felt like it wasn't going to happen.  We assured her that as she tries the Lord will indeed bless her efforts, and that the Lord's will will be done as she follows the promptings of the Holy Ghost.  It was a powerful exchange.

We have had a great week this week all in all!  I was feeling pretty depressed on Tuesday, because the weight of my calling and the responsibility I have was pressing on my mind and it caused me to reflect on how far away I was from being consecrated.  However, during the week I read a "consecrated missionary" talk by Tad R Callister, and was surprised to see that most of the attributes described in it were things I had realized and had been working on.  Then it really came to me that it was a process and a "receiving spiritual light" talk by David A. Bednar and that one became meshed in my brain.

I realized that the Lord "give[s] us our daily bread" as pray for it and seek it.  He helps us and strengthens us day by day to help realize the humility and patience we need to have in this process of becoming sons and daughters of God here on earth.  I learned that in our prayers, we need to ask for strength and help on a daily basis, and to look at the blessings that come from living the prayer you offered, and to not be frustrated when the end result isn't achieved in a timely matter, but to have confidence that we are indeed changing and "receiving more light, and becoming more Christlike " as we are faithful in our prayers.

 

For example: I have been praying for Charity, and In hind sight I noticed something.. as I began praying for it daily, I was given a little bit more.  I was able to love one person a little more than I would have otherwise.  Over time I had become frustrated that I wasn't loving everyone perfectly after all these prayers and working on it..  Now in hind sight, I can see just how the process of developing charity had begun and just how much it had indeed changed me.  Also, just how much I had overlooked it, being so focused on trying to be as charitable as Christ.

Thank you for your prayers and confidence.  It has been an amazing strength to me to see the positive nature of the vision and support I have from those I love.  It truly helps me keep my vision towards heaven not to the ground.

Love Elder Judy