Preach my Gospel pg. 10

Happy July 8th, family and friends!

HOLY MOLEY. This week has been yet another adventure in "The 'Bury"
(as Waterbury has been affectionately nicknamed.) Elder Echols and I
managed to stay incredibly busy, with nothing to really show for it.
We had 6 appointments/ stopbys with investigators fall through, and
several times when we stopped by members' homes when they weren't
there. It's so frustrating sometimes to know that you're doing your
best, but the Key Indicators don't really reflect how hard you're
working and what you're doing for those in the Lord's Kingdom. I've
had some serious issues in being discouraged, but then I came across a
perfect little nugget in Preach My Gospel: "Remember that people have
agency to choose whether to accept your message. Your responsibility
is to teach clearly and powerfully so they can make a correct choice.
Some may not accept your message even when they have received a
spiritual witness that it is true. You will be saddened because you
love them and desire their salvation. You should not, however, become
discouraged; discouragement will weaken your faith. If you lower your
expectations, your effectiveness will decrease, your desire will
weaken, and you will have greater difficulty following the Spirit."
It's right at the beginning on Page 10, and I've somehow just skipped
over this until now! *FACEPALM* I'm trying to be more in tune with
the Spirit and teach more powerfully, but I realized that I can't do
that when I'm discouraged. Truly exercising faith will lead to quite
the opposite-hope. "Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with
surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of
God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men,
which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good
works, being led to glorify God." (Ether 12:4) True faith, exercised
as a principle of action, leads us to do exactly that: ACT. Those
actions lead us to "always [abound] in good works," which then qualify
us for the Spirit and open the windows of Heaven. "Therefore... let
us cheerfully DO ALL THINGS that lie in our power; and then may we
stand still, with the UTMOST ASSURANCE, to see the salvation of God,
and for his arm to be revealed." (Doctrine and Covenants 123:17,
emphasis added) Others' agency is not something in our power, but our
actions are. As we do "all things that lie in our power"-and even
holy scripture says we must do them 'cheerfully'-then we have a
promise from God, through His Prophet Joseph Smith, that we will see
the salvation of God. That is faith as a principle of power. As we
use our faith to act and call down the powers of Heaven, we receive
power to do the things we need to do. This was quite the revelation
for me this week, in case y'all couldn't tell :) haha

In other news, we also got two member referrals this week and hope to
be able to start teaching them soon. Our ward is starting to get the
vision, and we're certainly doing our best to help everyone along.
Other than that, the "investigator" scene is fairly slow.

However, we have been working with an excommunicated woman in our
ward. She doesn't show up in the numbers we report at the end of the
week, but she is an example of true conversion. Her children are
usually wild and crazy, but we taught a lesson to their whole family
to help all of them feel the Spirit. We started with an object lesson
with a simple objective. We brought 5 soda bottles and 5 butter
knives. We set up the five bottles in a pentagon, and issued a
challenge: by placing the knives on top of the bottles, make a
structure that will hold up a Book of Mormon. There are a few rules,
though: the 5 bottles cannot be moved closer, and the knives can only
touch one bottle each. They tried and tried to come up with ways to
do it, but all of their ideas fell short. We then interlaced the
knives in such a way that they supported each other, and two quads to
boot. We taught the kids that every one of them needed to do exactly
what they knew was right in order to hold up their family. We got
each of the kids to share their testimony, and several other members
of the family did the same. Everyone was in tears, and the normally
CRAZY kids were silent. The Spirit was so powerful! It was truly
amazing! God has continued to bless us, and we look forward to
working even more!

Elder Nielsen

May we try to "cheerfully do all things that lie in our power" and

reap the blessings that God has in store for each and every one of us.
I love all of y'all, and always remember to keep your heads up :)

-Elda Alexander Boone