First off, happy mothers day to the best mom in the world!!!!! It was super good to talk with you and to remember all the great things you've done for me over my whole life. I echo the words of the man on the penny "All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." So thanks mom for being the best mom in the world! I really appreciate all that you've done for me and I love you lots:)
What a week! Time flies by so fast now! It's hard to remember everything that has happened this past week. Standard for our mission is to have 8 blessings by wednesday. Just a refresher of what Harvesting is, We knock on the door and tell the people that we are representatives of Jesus Christ and that He sent us to leave His peace and Blessing. We then ask what they need from Jesus or what we can pray for. We say the prayer and leave the Savior's Peace and Blessing with them. We ask them how they feel and we recognize it as the Spirit and the God truly did send us, we then invite them to be baptized on whatever the sunday is that's 2 weeks away. If they accept we ask when we could come by and share the message of the restored gospel. If they don't we invite them to church or to visit Mormon.org. Now this is just the layout we follow, we make sure we don't get rote.
A miracle that occurred this week was more of a indirect blessing. We were harvesting on wednesday and we only had a total of 7 for the week. We were determined to get 8 and time was running out. We said a prayer and asked that we would be able to achieve our goal of 8 by wednesday. Shortly after the prayer we felt super prompted to knock on this one house, we knew that they would answer and we would be able to leave the Savior's peace and blessing with them. We knocked and a person answered and was definitely not interested. As we were walking away I wondered, "why did I feel so prompted to knock there if they weren't interested? Was my faith not sufficient? or Was it just my own thought and not the Spirit?"
After pondering on these questions I knew for sure that the Spirit prompted me to knock on that door and that we did have the faith. Then why were they not interested? As I thought about this the story of Abraham and Isaac came to my mind. Abraham didn't know why he needed to sacrifice his son, but he willingly followed the command from God and showed God that he would listen and do as God directs, he would act on those promptings he would receive. By doing this Abraham showed God that he would be obedient and therefore God's trust in Abraham went up and Abraham was blessed forever after. I thought about the experience that just happened and felt good about the whole experience. I had showed God that I would follow the promptings of the Spirit and therefore God's trust in me went up. It was a really big learning experience for me and I know that blessings will now come in the future because I was willing to listen and to act.
I was studying in the Book of Mormon and today while reading in Alma 53 I wanted to study on the doctrine of repentance. While studying I found 3 different types of people in 3 different stages of repentance. In verse 9 it talks about the iniquitous Nephites and how the Lamanites gained power over them because of their iniquities. They had given into temptation and therefore they were destroyed. In verse 14 we see the Ammonites and how they are tempted to take up arms in defense of their people and break the covenants they made. Helaman and others persuade them to stay strong and not to break their covenants. In verse 20 we see the Stripling warriors and "they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted." They didn't give into temptation and they were firm to keep the commandments and didn't waver. I was trying to think of how this has anything to do with repentance. these verses show 3 groups of people, all sons and daughters of God who were tempted. We see those who fall, those who falter but get back up, and those who stay true. Everyone of these groups needs the Atonement and repentance in their lives. Everyday we come across people who are deep in sin and those who live pretty good lives, but everyone needs to repent and be change to live in accordance to God's laws. I applied this to how I will fulfill my calling, to declare repentance to all of God's children, and help them make those steps so they can live with God forever.
Also just a cool side note. Elder Holland made a surprise visit to the youth a couple of weeks ago and met with our mission Pres., President Anderson, while visiting with him, he grabbed him by the face (literally, he showed us a picture of it) and he exclaimed, "President, your mission is legendary!" When I heard that I felt like there was more responsibility and expectations to live up being in the "legendary mission", I will do my best to live up the expectations placed before me.
I love you guys and it was so good to talk to you all yesterday:) I love you lots and have a great week!
Love,
Elder Spencer Bailey
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