GENERAL CONFERENCE

Dear Missionary,

There isn't anything much better than being with those you love while listening to the words of the Prophets and Apostles during General Conference.   When we were young, conference probably meant coloring pictures of scripture stories and eating candy until our stomachs hurt.  As teenagers, it most likely meant fighting hopelessly to stay awake and listen to Conference with our eyes closed ;).  But when we come prepared, conference is a time of divine communion and spiritual strengthening.  No doubt we receive strength and guidance personally, but what does conference mean for the missionary inside each one of us??

Following the guidance of the Prophet and Apostles is essential to being an effective missionary.  Imagine yourself in a small boat, in the vast ocean, in the middle of the night.  Without any sense of direction it would be terrifying!  However, with a lighthouse you would at least know in which direction the safety of shore could be found.  But if you tried to just bee-line it to the light house, there is no telling what you would find that stands in between you and the shore...

So to avoid rocks, reefs, and other obstacles,  "lower lights" are placed on the beach.  If you line up any of the lower lights with the lighthouse you will have a straight line to safety, avoiding destruction and shipwreck!! (Hymn 335)

In the same way, if we follow the words of the Prophets and Apostles, which represent the lower lights, and follow our own personal revelation from the Lord, the lighthouse, we will be led through this turbulent sea of life toward the safety of shore!  Both the Lord and his ordained servants are essential for success :)

As Missionaries, we need to realize that we cannot remain on the shore and call from a distance... rather we are in the thick of the stormy sea getting ourselves wet and trying to help all of our brothers and sisters make it to shore.  And it is essential to keep ourselves on the ri Only if we first align ourselves with the Lord and his ordained servants will we be able to help those struggling at sea align themselves as well.

Nephi demonstrates this principle of aligning ourselves with the Lord and his authorized servants beautifully!  Nephi's bow breaks while him and his brothers are hunting.  Everyone is TICKED at Nephi because, besides hunting, they had no other way to get real substantial food to sustain themselves.  Even Nephi's dad Lehi, the Prophet, began to complain.  Showing complete alignment with the Lord and his ordained servants, Nephi made a bow out of wood (haha I bet it wasn't all that great) and asked his father "Whither shall I go to obtain food?" (1 Nephi 16:23).

As a result, Lehi received revelation from the Lord which led Nephi to knowing where to go to hunt with his little weak-sauce bow.  And miraculously, he was able to hunt a bunch of animals and feed his family!  Had Nephi been prideful and decided to go hunt on his own without asking his father, the Prophet, where he should go, he would not have been successful.

In the same way, we can receive guidance from the Prophet and Apostles on how to best carry out missionary work.  I testify that the Prophets and Apostles hold the Priesthood keys and authority to receive direct answers from God to guide us in how we can be better missionaries and help others come to shore.  I know that the Priesthood, and the living revelation that comes with it, has been restored on the earth today! If we prepare ourselves for conference, we will receive answers from God for our personal lives, as well as answers to help us be better missionaries!!!!  LETS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT THIS WEEKEND TO RECEIVE GUIDANCE :)

Remember who you are.  You are a Missionary.

-- Parker

If you do or have received some cool guidance from Conference, please share below! :)

p.s. check out my friend Alex's website for future missionaries!  www.preparetoserve.com

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!

FEAR VS. LOVE

Dear Missionary,

Chances are, if you are reading this blog you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints :).   So do you know what that means?  You are a missionary!  And if you haven't felt a little like our friend up above then you are the exception, not the rule!  The purpose of this blog is to help all missionaries everywhere (especially us members) to be a little more courageous in the building of the kingdom of God.

I hope that this blog acts kind of like a fire pit. Think of all the coals in the fire pit.  They all work together to keep the flames going.  And so many blessings come as a result (like some crazy tasty s'mores)!  But if you separate all the coals, they will begin to cool down and burn out, becoming worthless.  In that same way, the last thing that Satan wants us to do is to unite ourselves to build a burning fire of missionary work in God's kingdom.  But, unfortunately for him, that is exactly what I want to do!  So let's make this a place where we can collaborate and share ideas and experiences together to keep us all stoked about missionary work.

So let's start simply with fear vs. love!  Take a minute to think back to a time you tried to share the gospel with someone.  Were you a little nervous or scared?  If you are anything like me, then you were! And you know what? That is totally okay!  Mormon said simply "... I fear not what man can do; for perfect love casteth out all  fear." (Moroni 8:16) So Charity, or the pure love of Jesus Christ, can and will cast out all fear!

I like to think of Charity like building muscles.  All of those tough guys and girls out there who hit the gym everyday usually drink some protein shake or something before they go work out.  That way, when they work out, the protein goes to their muscles and helps build them up faster and stronger!  In the same way as drinking a protein shake, we must pray with all the energy of heart to be filled with Charity. After,  we must go and serve and help others, just like working out.  If we do this, I know that we will overcome the weakness of fear and be able to be strong in serving in the Lord's kingdom.  

I saw this clearly in one of my companions on the mission.  This Elder got to the field and didn't no much more Spanish than "Dios te ama" (God loves you).  This Elder would just knock on the door and have a huge smile on his face and when they opened up he would smile and say something about God with as much love as he could.  Then he would turn to me to take over.  Awkward? Absolutely.  Powerful? Definitely!  So many more people were willing to listen to us because they felt his love!

So that is my challenge.  That we all begin to "pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that [we] may  be filled with this love..." (Moroni 7:48)  I know that if we pray for Charity everyday and then seek to reach out to others in love, we will overcome fear and contribute to the work of salvation!  Jesus Christ is the source of Charity and will freely give it to us as we ask the Father in his name.  I know that Jesus Christ lives.  I know that this is his work.  I know that he has the power to strengthen and uplift all through his love!

Remember who you are.  You are a Missionary!

--Parker

What are your thoughts about Charity and its role in missionary work?  Please comment and share experiences below!