Wow,
so this week was way sweet. Ann Arbor was soooo sweet! Elder Bednar is amazing, words cant even describe what i want to say about it. It kinda stinks that i dont have notes to tell you guys about everything he said. He gave us a list of guidlines, the first one was. Do not take copious notes, he called it a foolish tradition of our fathers, he said what we need to be writing down are impressions that come to our mind during the meeting, NOT everything that is said. So basically i have like 4 sentances written down. Elder Bednar is so dang funny, ive never heard an apostle call someone a liar so many times as he did. He was talking about the notes we take and how we lose them and never read them again and if you are saying "Well Elder Bednar i look at them and study them later....You're LYING!" the entire meeting was very spiritual though. He didnt get up and give a talk, he asked us a question, then we were able to raise our hands if we wanted and share our thoughts or answer his question. It was basically a training meeting on how to preserve our agency. How we can teach our investigators how to act without being acted upon. One of the guidelines he gave was that he would never call on anyone, and he told us why. Because when you call on someone and put them on the spot, they have now become and object rather and agent unto themselves. The way we learn life lessons, life-changing lessons, is when we put the effort into acting for ourselves and growing on our own free will. The talks we were told to study before the trip were about faith, and how faith is a principle of action and power, and how we are to use faith when we teach and when we are learning. i dont even know what all to tell you without it being too confusing, because im almost confusing myself, haha. man it was good. He let us have a little question/answer thing with him and 3 members of the seventy, he basically told us that this is one of the only times in our lives we will be around an apostle in such a small meeting, so now is your time to ask questions. i wish i could tell you guys what was said, but we were very clearly told we werent permitted to. sorry. dang i feel like i just built up to this sweet story then just hit the delete button. haha. There is no doubt in my mind that Elder David A. Bednar is an apostle to the Lord Jesus Christ. he spoke with the power of God. That man knew the answer to every question that was thrown at him. he had a response to every sentance, through the spirit he broadened and opened my mind up to possibilities i thought were only possible in scripture stories. He is concerned for each of us, he told us at the start of that meeting that if he came and just gave us a talk it would be a cake-walk. But Using the Spirit to discern and to answer questions by the Spirit and to do everyhting that he did in that meeting was physically, mentally, and emotionally draining. I dont know what else to say, learn by the spirit, learn by faith. Faith is a principle of action and of power. There are things to act, and things to be acted upon, which are you? just a few thoughts to think about throughout your day.
As far as the area goes. Things are great. Me and Elder Lloyd before the ann arbor trip were constantly amazed about how little we know. How just when you think you have got it figured out, you are dead wrong. We were thinking about our teaching and we had a pretty crappy teaching experience with Scott, which we later talked about and life is just crazy. Elder Lloyd has been out 20 months and i have been out a year and we still have no clue what we were doing. Then Elder Bednar came and basically destroyed every ounce of confidence i have in my teaching. a good kind of destruction though, so we are in the process of reconstructing the way we teach, the way we commit and the way we have our investigators learn. In one week we went from being good teachers to noobs again. haha ITS SO AWESOME!
Noel came to church yesterday!!!!! Woohooo! She is the most golden investigator i have ever had. She keeps saying how when she prays before she reads she can finally learn and understand things, then she said. "im thinking about praying every morning" just simple things like that, but its so good to hear someone that is progressing and searching. Ive had to pull teeth with most of my gators and its good to know that if i commit her to do something, she will do it. so refreshing. We told her to pray about baptism, so next time we go over there we will talk about it more. I think we might see if she wants to set a date for a baptism and talk about how showing her faith "acting" is going to get her the answer she needs, and its going to show her desire and commitment. so hopefully it all turns out good.
Valorie is kind of in a mess. Her kids are giving her some trouble. Her 16 year old girl ran away to live with her boyfriend and is basically demanding money from her. Her other son who is 14 bought these wooden roses, all different colors to give to basically every woman in his life. his mom and he gave one to his teacher and it was a black rose....which is considered a death threat, and she freaked out and now theres a big deal about going to court and possible juvi, so she told us she has been doing a lot of soul searching, and thats one of the reasons she has commited to come to church every week she doesnt work, so things are good in a spiritual sense, but bad in every other way it seems. crazy people man. im so glad every day that i didnt grow up in Michigan with a bunch of...well ill just stop there before i say something i shouldnt....
Scott.....i dont know what happened with this man. You wouldnt believe the change that has taken place in the last 2 months. we went from being really friendly, laughing, teaching, the spirit was there, then we got on the Word of wisdom issue and im pretty sure Scott started lying to us and i think there were other things going on. and there were seriously times when we went over there that i wouldnt say more than a few sentances the whole time. i dont know what came over me, but it was like i was in this stupor every time we went over to teach him. Its the craziest thing. And im not sure if i can even go over there again. i dont know. Scott said in the future he might get baptized, but as of right now, things are too crazy and stressful. i dont know...
So theres the week for you. Scott Bartoszek from Muskegon called and wants to come up and see me and some other missionaries up north. So im going to email President and see if maybe next p day we can go up to Mackinac island and see the Upper Peninsula, so hopefully hes cool with it. I heard its amazing up there! so thats my weeks, hope y'all are having a good time reshingling the house, healing up from your wounds, working, playing, shredding on the guitar(Bri) Larsens rule! and the church is true, what more needs to be said? Love you guys. Peace
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\m/ ~ Elder Larsen ~ \m/
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