Canberra Zone Week 20

Finally! After several crazy hot days..... it has rained and is cloudy... Oh happy day! :)

 

Have to go since we have a zone p-day!

 

Love yas!

 

Here is my letter to President:

 

This week has been pretty great! Since we did not come up to transfers, and our entire flat is staying for this transfer, it seems that almost nothing has changed and so we had no problems in moving forward with the work. Looking over the past transfer, it seems that Elder White and I have been fairly consistent with our teaching which is good, it just needs to raise up a bit and stay consistently at the standard of excellence. We really have discussed a lot more of how we can keep helping our zone see WHY we are striving to teach 20 lessons a week. We both agree that we feel the focus on ordinances is not as large as it should be. For each person we teach, we need to be focusing on the most essential ordinances for them, whether that be Baptism, Sacrament, advancing in the Priesthood, or temple ordinances. We must always have a goal in sight and a vision for those we are teaching. For example, there are many areas which teach several member present lessons to investigators every week, but have a chronic problem with investigators attending sacrament meeting, which in turn hinders them from baptism. For me, having a "lazer like focus" on key indicators is seeing how they interact and depend upon one another. Please correct me if I am wrong, but to me, we need to be having a great focus upon the key indicators of Baptism and confirmation, and sacrament attendance. These are the two most important. to use the metaphor of a magnifying glass, these need to be the focal point of the magnifying glass, and the other aspects which are also enlarged are what need to be seen and adressed to help keep that focal point where it needs to be. Too often I feel we move the magnifying glass around. One week we focus on recent converts and less actives, another week we realize we need to seek more referrels, then we find out that it is difficult to find members present for teaching.... and so on. Doing this moves our focus away from the two most important key indicators. But as we focus on those two and really evaluate "what do we need to do in order to get people to sacrament meeting?" and "what can we do this week, to better prepare these people for baptism?" we will find that the answers come in the form that we need to have members at our lessons, that we need to be teaching them often, we need to constantly seek referrals so that we can have more people to teach when our investigators get baptized and so forth. I believe as we focus our actions, studies, and teaching upon the two most important key indicators, the others will also fall into place and we will see more people being baptized, and moving on toward the temple.

In my Book of Mormon reading this week, (I am sorry I am a bit behind, but I will catch up) I really liked the short and simple verse of 2 Nephi 11:6- "And my soul delighteth in proving unto my people that save Christ should come all men must perish"

For me, this statement is so true. I love helping people come to realize for themselves the Role that Jesus Christ has in our lives. He is THE way, THE truth, and THE light. In today's world we have many choices- when we want dinner, entertainment, electronics, etc there are so many different choices we can pick and choose, and in the end whichever way we pick is fine. Nobody will really care if I decide to eat Indian food rather than Thai food for dinner. However, when it comes to Eternal Life, there is only one choice. As stated in Ephesians 4:5 there is "one faith, one Lord, one baptism." We had the opportunity to help a man named Shiran understand that earlier this week. We went to dinner at a family's home. The daughter had brought a 19 year old friend to have dinner with them and us. After the meal, we moved into the family room to share a message with the family. Long story short, Shiran had questions about what is the differences between our church and his as well as all other Christian churches. Without trying to tear down his beliefs, we taught him about the need for authority and how we believe the authority to baptise, and govern the Church was lost and then restored. He went away excited to read the copy of the Book of Mormon we left, and mentioned to his member friend that he is curious to find out where their Church's authority came from. For me, it was a great moment to learn that in regards to religion, there is truly only ONE truth. We can have many opinions or views, but when it all boils down, there is only one way and that is God's way. That will be what happens and I am grateful for the opportunity that we have to pray to know what is His way. He doesn't want His children to be confused, He wants them to obtain eternal life and come to know Him on a personal level. I am grateful for my understanding and relationship that I have with Him.