A Powerful Experience

Smiling faces in Florida!

I feel like this week I should mention something about the importance of preparation. When we want a spiritually uplifting experience there is a price for it. We have to show faith and sincerity to the Lord by making preparation to commune with Him and receive the message that He has to tell us. 

I've learned over the course of my mission that if we prepare for meetings, events, temple attendance, or even our daily personal prayers, then we will feel a power and a closeness to the Lord that we may not normally experience without that kind of preparation. 

As an example, how can we prepare to have a powerful experience at the temple? Here's a list of things that I've found helpful: pray and ask God to help you prepare, study general conference talks about the temple or the sealing power or personal revelation, study Ensign articles about those same subjects, look for examples in the scriptures of when people prepared for spiritual events, read the Kirtland temple dedicatory prayer in D&C 109, pray about what you could fast for while attending the temple, fast for those things, come away from the temple with action items of what you will do better. Those are only a few of the ways we can prepare.

I promise that if we approach our church meetings and other sacred events with this kind of an attitude then we will see a drastic change in our closeness to the Spirit.

Snow?

The missionary Christmas setup complete
with canned snow (thanks, Grandma Bette!).

Elder Wadsworth and I have been trying to help members to do missionary work. We visited a member family recently and taught them the Restoration. We wanted this to be a powerful lesson so we did everything we could to prepare so that the Spirit could be there. We taught them and then the Spirit just took over. 

At the end of the lesson this family was discussing ideas on how they could do missionary work and they set a goal of what they wanted to accomplish this week in sharing the gospel. We didn't even have to ask them to do it. Initially we thought that the lesson hadn't gone that well, but these good people were receptive to the Spirit and began to act on the promptings they were receiving right there and then. It was a great thing to watch!

How, Who, and Why

Merry Christmas from Winter Haven, Florida!

Well the good news is that another transfer has come and gone and I'm not getting transferred. I love it in Winter Haven and some great things are happening here so it would've been terrible to leave. 

This last week we were talking with a man about what he believes. I've had several moments on my mission where I've been filled with gratitude for the restored gospel and this was one of them. He mentioned that it doesn't matter what we believe as long as we believe in God. This man is sincere in his faith and has a kind heart. I'm not opposed to that in the least. However, it does matter how, who, and why we worship. Salvation only comes through believing and practicing correct principles. I get excited to see investigators discover these correct principles for themselves. 

The other day we were teaching a woman about the priesthood and throughout the whole lesson it just seemed to click for her. She readily agreed to read the Book of Mormon and come to church and it was amazing to see her desire to know that these things are true. I'm grateful to participate in that process.

Incredible Insights

#LIGHTtheWORLD! Lakeland Zone's day of service.

I've been studying repentance this past week. When I choose a topic to study I read everything that the gospel library app has to offer on the topic. It takes a while but the insights I get from all the different articles/scriptures are incredible. I've learned what a privilege it is to repent. I've learned of our Savior's capacity to forgive as well. 

As we were teaching an investigator last week we were talking about repentance and she made the connection that someone who is truly repenting will automatically desire to be baptized because that's part of repentance. It was a great lesson and studying this topic has really helped my appreciation for the Atonement.