PATIENCE

Dear Missionary,

Have you ever felt impatient?  Sometimes for me the thought of waiting for something, especially when I don't know exactly when it will happen, can seem overwhelming and make me want to cry like a little mama's boy!  However I testify that patience is an essential part of missionary work and I pray that the spirit will help us feel that as we discuss the attribute of patience together!

Do you remember the first time you tried to grow a plant?  You probably expected that little cup of dirt to shoot forth a little stem instantly like a geyser at Yellow-Stone.  When it didn't happen as soon as you wanted you might have given up on it.  Or perhaps you were smarter and decided that if you poured a gallon of water on it and threw it in the oven the water and heat would produce a miracle :). (hopefully you never tried that one!) I think we, as little kids were simply missing the key ingredient of patience.

We often do the same thing in missionary work.  We either give up after the first time someone says they don't want to hear about the gospel, assuming that their response was final.  Or we decide that enough pressure, cookies, and invites will suddenly make a non-member into a perfect candidate for the full-time missionaries and baptism :) Rather as we "cheerfully do all things that lie in our power" we can "stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed" (D&C 123:17)  So let us be patient in the work of the Lord and realize that he is the Lord of the Vineyard!

But lets be honest, doesn't it bug us all just a little bit when someone says "just suck it up and be patient"??  For me, I always nod and smile back to the person and say "totally", but inside I am at a total loss with knowing where to start.  Do we just flip on a patience switch and suddenly become content with waiting indefinitely?  In my opinion, there is much more to patience that just shutting our mouth and waiting.  To be truly patient we must learn to increase our FAITH in the Lord and also learn to live with GRATITUDE in our hearts!

Faith in Jesus Christ leads us to have a more hopeful and  optimistic attitude towards the future which enables us to wait patiently for good things to come.  We must always remember that "faith is not knowing what the future holds, but who holds the future."

In the meantime, we must learn to have gratitude in our hearts.  Impatience is wanting what we don't have, and wanting it right now.  Gratitude on the other hand is appreciating what we do have, and appreciating it right now.  So essentially as we increase gratitude in our lives our capacity to wait calmly for good things to come grows!

And believe it our not, the good things do come!  Last weekend I had the opportunity to go back to my mission in Everett Washington to see the baptism of an awesome guy named Craig Lash!  Craig was married to a faithful member of the church who was SO PATIENT with her husband.  Every time we would go over for dinner and share a message afterwards with Craig, I could just see the sincere desire of Sister Lash for her husband to receive the gospel, but I could also just feel her incredible patience with him and trust in the Lord.  After 23 years of patient waiting, Craig chose to seriously investigate and be baptized!  WAHOOO :)  Please read more of their story below in the comments!

I testify that patience is an essential attribute of Christ that we must learn to develop.  I Testify that God will send his holy spirit to help us develop patience as we choose to build FAITH in Jesus Christ and have GRATITUDE in our hearts for the good things we have already.

Remember who you are.  You are a Missionary.

--Parker

Have you said a prayer of pure thanks to God lately?  

Please share any comments below :)

PRAYER

Dear Missionary,

Have you ever fallen asleep praying?  If you have, you know there is nothing more demoralizing or disorienting than waking up from a prayer with your legs asleep :). All of us members could use a little fine tuning in our prayers so we can become better missionaries. So lets talk about why prayer is so important in missionary work and how we can pray more effectively so we avoid looking like this girl above!

Enos, in my opinion, is THE MAN when it comes to prayer.  After having "wrestled with the Lord" and received a remission of his own sins he does something incredible.  Instead of getting up, brushing the dirt of his knees and going to hunt, he stays on his knees and sincerely prayers for others!! as a result, the Lord says to Enos "I will visit thy brethren..." and later tells Enos it is "because of thy faith" (Enos 10-12).  If we pray sincerely for others, I testify that the Lord will visit them in mercy.

A dramatic example of the power of prayer for others is the story of Alma the younger.  Alma the younger and his friends were a rough bunch.  Yet the members of the church gathered together in faith and prayed sincerely for them.  As a result the Lord visited the trouble makers by sending an angel.  The angel told Alma that "the Lord [had] heard the prayers of his people, and also the prayers of his servant, Alma, who is thy father..." (Mosiah 27:14).  Because these people prayed with faith, Alma the younger and his buddies had a mighty change of heart!!!

I highly doubt those who prayed for Alma the younger looked like the little girl in the first picture ;).  So how can we have more effective prayers?  As we really come to understand who we are talking with and prepare better to talk with Him, we will have awesome prayers!!

God is our loving Heavenly Father and also our majestic Heavenly King.  I once heard a story from my friend Manny Griffiths.  A general authority visited a mission in Portugal where all the missionaries combined had only helped 8 or so people come unto Christ through baptism during that year.  The general authority felt impressed to invite the missionaries to imagine their Heavenly Father sitting in his majestic throne listening intently to every word they said during their prayers.  The missionaries took the counsel to heart and a year or so later the mission in Portugal baptized over 100 people... 

IN ONE MONTH!

So, my dear friend, approach God's throne prepared.  Think and meditate a little bit before you begin your prayer.  Take some deep breaths.  Perhaps after getting up in the morning you should even  take a shower, eat or do something to wake yourself up before your morning prayers (morning prayers are the hardest for me!).  If you do, your prayers will be much more powerful and uplifting!

Above all, remember who you are.  You are a Missionary.

--Parker

Who can you pray for this week?

  

Any cool prayer stories? Please comment below! :)

TESTIMONY

Dear Missionary,

One of my favorite scriptures in the Book of Mormon is Mosiah 18:9.  It teaches us that we need to "stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that [we] may be in, even until death..."  So let's talk about how we can be witnesses of Jesus Christ by bearing powerful testimony!

Have you ever wondered if you can really share your testimony and say that you KNOW that this gospel is true? Honestly, it's a valid concern that I think all of us face at some point.  Perhaps this example will help :).

I know this is going to be tough to imagine with all of the technology we have today, but do you remember what a Polaroid picture is?  They are those pictures that get printed right on the spot out of the camera.  The picture starts out dark as night but as you shake it, it starts to light up, little by little.  I remember getting so excited to shake the picture and slowly see how crazy the face I made was :).

   Testimonies are just like Polaroid pictures.  I know, crazy right?!  But think about it.  When you first start the process of gaining a testimony you simply believe.  You can't see much of anything but you hope and believe that it is true.  But as you shake it you begin to see the picture and what it contains.  Do you need to wait until there is absolutely no darkness left to recognize the truth of what the picture contains?  No! The picture lights up ever so slowly and you can begin to discern the truth of it long before it is 100% clear.

 Honestly chances are we won't ever come to the point in our lives when it is 100% crystal clear, but that does not stop us from sharing what we KNOW to be true about the "picture" of the Gospel! But we can't wait on the side-lines like slackers and expect it to just magically appear. We must shake our testimonies like Polaroid pictures! We do this by acting on the word of God day by day.  Through experience and through the whisperings of the Holy Spirit, we will see what our Heavenly Father's picture contains! And we will then be able say with surety that we KNOW it is true!

So once we begin to grow our testimonies and experience a "swelling in our hearts" how do we actually bear our testimony??  What comes to your mind when some says "bear your testimony."?  For me I think of a little whippersnapper up at the pulpit saying "i'd like to bear my testimony, I know this church is true."  Haha gotta love it right?!  Although sharing  your testimony through word is important, I believe there is more to it.

If you look up the word "bear" in the dictionary, you see words like "hold", "carry", and "sustain".  In fact in no part do you ever see the word "tell" or "say".  So does bearing our testimony just mean telling it to the congregation on fast Sunday?  No, there is surely more!  We must "bear" our testimony every day by living what we believe.  In that way we carry, hold, and sustain our testimony so that it can be a light to the world.

The Lord has commanded that we "let [our] light so shine before men, that they may see [our] good works, and glorify [our] Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).  So as we choose to be witnesses of the Good Shepherd through our actions, we are holding the light of the gospel for all to see!

Remember who you are.  You are a Witness.  You are a Missionary.

-- Parker

Will you share your testimony in the comments below? Then commit yourself to bearing that testimony with courage this week!