Haha it´s funny you ask me for Plan of Salvation insights, that was my least favorite lesson to teach, but I decided this week that I wanted to make it a strength, so I have studied Plan of Salvation a TON this week, but my favorite things that I´ve learned and felt were in the zone conference that we had with President Riggins. He taught about the Atonement in such an AMAZING way. I´ve started studying the atonement more, which has lead me to study the sacrament more. But that´s all a different topic. What I really like in Preach My Gospel is that it says that in our life here in the earth, we have two HUGE obstacles that keep us from returning to live with God, and these are physical death and spiritual death. To overcome these obstacles, we have Jesus Christ. It´s thanks to the atonement of Jesus Christ that all men, whether they be righteous or evil, will overcome physical death, and we will all be resurrected to be judged. Jesus Christ also overcame spiritual death, by atoning for our sins and making it possible to repent, and through His sacrifice we can become clean, if we exercise faith in Him, repent, if we receive the ordinance of baptism and receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end, which includes weekly participation of the sacrament (and of course temple ordinances but we usually explain that as we´re explaining the spirit world). I am going to write about the training that we had with President Riggins so I´m not getting into depth about anything. I don´t know, I can´t say that I have any real deep spiritual insights, just that I know it´s true. I love learning about the spiritual missionary work in the spirit world too.
** Another Note from Lorri - Natalie's grandma asked her children and grandchildren to go to the temple this month in honor of Grandpa Skousen and in celebration of his birthday. Grandpa passed away 11 months ago.
I didn´t know about the planned temple trip, but I still went this Friday, and I thought A LOT about Grandpa Skousen. Whenever I think of Grandpa, I think of the scripture is 2 Nefi 32 that says that angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost. I know that this is absolutely true. I could feel his presence in the temple, and I felt very comforted to know, once again, that I will see him again and that he is proud of where I am and what I´m doing. His body might be resting, but his spirit is absolutely alive and active, and I imagine he´s hard at work right doing the same thing I´m doing right now.
But yeah. This week has kicked my trash. We have been working so hard,
but it´s a difficult area. We know that there are people here that are
ready for the restored gospel, but we have to look
reeeeeeeeaaaaaalllllyyy hard. We knock on lots of doors, and almost
everyone is nice about it, but they all tell us thanks, but no thanks.
This Wednesday, we did invasions, where everyone in the zone goes to
contact in one area, so we had 12 missionaries contacting in our sector
for an hour, and then we all went to another sector and so on and so
forth. We invited two people and two people accepted to be baptized on
Wednesday, just by contacting, but these two people lived in other
sectors. So I like to think that our issue isn´t that we aren´t good at
talking to people or that we don´t teach with the spirit, it´s just that
it´s a difficult area. But I´m getting to really like the ward. We
might have a baptism this week. I don´t want to curse things so I´m just
going to say we MIGHT have a baptism. The ward mission leader is really
funny, and his wife is pretty much the coolest person ever, and they
have a chubby little son that wears a future missionary badge and has
the energy of 8 Gary Boltons. So that´s how my week went haha but the
best thing was of course FRIDAY
We went to the temple! We were all so excited. We had to get up at
430 am to be ready and in the temple at 6:15 in the morning. I
absolutely love the temple. This time was especially great, because I
understood everything in Spanish and didn´t have to stress out about not
hearing something right. But it was beautiful. It was fun to be in a
session of just missionaries and the mission president and his wife.
We´re all so young! Also, weird though that I discovered this week - I´m
old. My leaders are 18 year olds. They all assumed I was 19 and were
really surprised when I told them I was 21. My zone leader was a
sophomore when I was a senior. Weird.
Back to Friday. We went to the temple, and afterwards we had a
training meeting. In the training meeting, we learned... a ton. I don´t
even know where to start. One thing that really impacted me is that
every time we knowingly sin, we are disrespecting the atonement. The
word is not disrespecting but I can´t really think of a good work to
substitute. We are trodding under our feet the atonement of Jesus
Christ, the supreme act of love and the most important thing in the
entire world. When we fear teaching the commandments to the
investigators, we are letting them trod the atonement under their feet. I
don´t have my notes with me right now, but he stated it a lot more
eloquently, and I remember feeling right after that I needed to call
everyone out there to repentance! President Riggins also taught us with
many scriptures and in a rather round about but very interesting way why
we as missionaries should go to the temple, and that the temple is
actually the Lord´s university, because there we are truly instructed in
the ways of the Lord. They also talked about how lots of people here
don´t pay tithing, and that we need to teach well the doctrine of
tithing. Lots of people said they have fear of teaching tithing, but to
be honest, tithing is tied with the Restoration for my favorite lesson
to teach. I love tithing. It´s fun to promise blessings to these people
and helping them exercise their faith.
What else can I tell you? My time is almost spent.
Oh yeah, we were
late in writing because they told us that we had to deep clean our house
before leaving, and there was a TON of dust. We cleaned hours and
hours. It was actually really fun. We put on the MoTab Christmas cd and I
sang at the top of my lungs.
Okay yeah I´m out of time now. But things are great! I´m happy,
healthy.
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