Confidence

This week I've learned a lot about confidence. Confidence in myself. Confidence in my companion. And most of all confidence in the Lord. I have sought earnestly to become unified and spiritually-guided with Elder Tandy and we've hit a few bumps along the way. As I was praying one night, however, the thought came to me - seek to control what's in your control. You can't change other's agency, so do everything you can to be the best you can be and leave the rest to the Lord.

I strove to follow this counsel and was given strength as we learned about our strengths from Paul Wyn at MLC. The counsel of how to acquire the Healer's art from President and Sister Samuelian was a blessing as well and helped me see that it is mostly my responsibility to turn my companion, investigators, members, and myself over to the Lord to receive guidance and correction.

I have sought to serve my companion this week by complimenting him on his strengths and yielding to him in lessons and finding opportunities. The Lord has consecrated my efforts and shown love to me and Elder Tandy.

We saw this as we spent a good chunk of time on Thursday preparing for our zone meeting. Our efforts were blessed and we had super spiritual meeting. We testified of the Atonement in ways I had never thought of before. We led our zone through a barefoot, silent walk through the church halls. We walked in and through the baptismal font, pausing to look at "Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ..." and then walked in the Spirit back to the chapel where many members of the zone bore powerful testimony of the things the Spirit had taught them. It was such a neat experience.

Since then, Elder Tandy and I have taught many powerful lessons and have given a few blessings of comfort to help some of our investigators in their repentance process. Last night we gave one of our investigator's a blessing after he made a mistake and was set back a little on his progression. It was amazing to feel of the love God had for him and I felt it as I shared testimony of Christ and His atonement.

I am loving serving the Lord these extra weeks in the field. I pray that the things I am learning will always be brought to my remembrance.

Here's a talk I came across this week, here's just an excerpt (from Elder Holland):

For that reason I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy, nor that conversion is, nor that retention is, nor that continued faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort, something from the depths of our soul.

If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face, bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can pass, let it pass,” ¹⁶ then little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us. If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier way.

The Atonement will carry the missionaries perhaps even more importantly than it will carry the investigators. When you struggle, when you are rejected, when you are spit upon and cast out and made a hiss and a byword, you are standing with the best life this world has ever known, the only pure and perfect life ever lived. You have reason to stand tall and be grateful that the Living Son of the Living God knows all about your sorrows and afflictions. The only way to salvation is through Gethsemane and on to Calvary. The only way to eternity is through Him—the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

I testify that the living God is our Eternal Father and that Jesus Christ is His living and Only Begotten Son in the flesh. I testify that this Jesus, who was slain and hanged on a tree, ¹⁷ was the chief Apostle then and is the chief Apostle now, the Great High Priest, the chief cornerstone of His Church in this last and greatest of all dispensations. I testify that He lives, that the whole triumph of the gospel is that He lives, and because He does, so will we.

On that first Resurrection Sunday, Mary Magdalene first thought she saw a gardener. Well, she did—the Gardener who cultivated Eden and who endured Gethsemane. The Gardener who gave us the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley, the cedars of Lebanon, the tree of life.