August 19, 2014

Elder Low's report:

This week I've been reading quite a bit about Alma and the sons of Mosiah during their missions. Something in particular that caught my attention was Alma Chapter 29, which is a discourse written by Alma after the completion of these said missions. During this discourse he talks about how he wishes to he could be an angel, so he could proclaim the gospel to all the ends of the earth. However afterwards he sort of rebukes himself, and teaches the reader about where as servants of God our desires should be:

9)  I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy.

Though Alma thought it would be exciting to be an angel, he knew where he had been called. He knew he was where the Lord needed him and that as he magnified his calling, he could receive the happiness he desired, which came only through submitting our will unto God, becoming an instrument in his hand, and thereby bringing his children home unto him.

This week we hit a rough patch. We were really struggling to find new investigators through our efforts. We continued to harvest and found a lot of people who truly did seem interested, but when the time came to follow up or commit they dropped off. This happened even until Sunday when our potential for baptism dropped off as well. After church that night we sat down and thought what it was that God wanted us to do. We started to make plans in how we could improve and a thought came to our mind, which at first seemed a little odd, but that I am sure was revelation from God. The thought was "go out and visit less actives." It didn't seem too flashy and we were unsure at first of how that was going to help strengthen our investigator pool, but we went and did. That night we didn't find too much success, but we felt what we were doing was right, so the next day we tried again. We knocked on the door of one of our recent converts and somebody we had never met answered the door. He introduced himself as just a friend of the member. We prayed with him and invited him to be baptized. He said he was very spiritual, then looked at us almost with a little surprise, and said "I have never been baptized before." We testified of the power of baptism and he accepted. The miracles didn't end there though. 5 minutes later we went to our other recent convert’s house and found a former investigator there who had been to church 4 times. We talked to him about baptism though he did not accept a date then and there; he said that he had been thinking about it while we'd been gone. We testified that we would help him prepare.

 I know as we magnify our callings, no matter what they are, fulfilling every part of our purpose, we will bring those who are waiting to Christ. I know that the Lord is pleased with those who are willing to perform his will.

 Elder Low