Hola
mi familia!
This
week has been awesome!
I
found out yesterday that i will be heading down to Columbia, TN with Elder
Bringhurst. He has been out 1 transfer longer than me, so he’s got 2 transfers
left. Columbia is about 40 miles south of Nashville, in the Franklin stake. I’m
super excited to be going there, we will be covering an English ward and a
spanish group. So ill be doing english work for a change, as well as Spanish
work.
This
past weekend i had the blessing of being able to hear from Elder Holland 3 days
in a row. It was one of the coolest experiences ever. On Friday we were able to
go to a young adult meeting with one of our investigators, Liz. It was set up
as a Q&A type of meeting, and it was the fastest 2 hours ever. Then the
next morning we had a missionary meeting with him, where the whole mission got
together to meet with him. That’s the first time the whole mission has gotten
together since I’ve been out. That was an intense meeting. Then on Sunday we
had a 7 multi-stake conference. I got a ton of notes from it, so I’ll share a few
of my thoughts that I got out of it. Hopefully it helps you like it helped me.
The
first thought was started when Elder Holland asked “What made the prophets of
old be able to go on, knowing that their efforts would be almost wasted because
of certain apostasy?” Because if you think about it, back then they didn’t have
very much missionary work, they had 1 temple for centuries, and the temple at
the time of Jesus lasted from about 30 ad to 77 ad. So why did they not just
give up out of depression? It is because they saw our day, they saw when it
finally did succeed, they saw a day when missionary work was worldwide. They
saw when there was 160 temples and growing, where the people they couldn’t
reach can be reached. That is what kept them going through the dark times. That
being said, we owe it to them to live up to what they saw. Because we are
blessed to live in the days that the gospel is working. We have the
responsibility to save the human family.
During
the YA meeting, someone asked “what is the way to best establish Zion in
nashville, tn?” And he responded that it is the same way you can establish Zion
anywhere. It is through a personal, consecrated life. Maybe that is started by
the little things. But there is never going to be a day that we can establish a
worldwide Zion if we cant do it in our own lives.
My
last thought is one of my favorites from this weekend. It’s from Mark 4. After
Jesus finishes teaching some parables, he is extremely exhausted so he turns to
his apostles and tells them they will cross to the other side of the sea.
During this trip, is the story that everyone knows. 9/12 apostles grew up
fisherman, they were very comfortable with the water. But even with that, there
was a storm that came upon them that caused even those fisherman to fear. Now
if you can imagine how exhausted Jesus was, to be able to sleep through this
storm. Now the apostles must have been contemplating for a really long time,
whether or not they should wake Jesus. But they eventually did, and they asked
whether he cared if they all perished. Then Jesus came back with kind of a
harsh rebuke. He said “Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?”
Now do you think he was justified in this rebuke? I mean these fishermen were
scared out their minds of perishing at sea, they were even bailing out the
boat. But if you look back at the beginning of the journey you find his
justification. He told his apostles that they were going to cross to the other
side! If Jesus Christ himself says it will happen, then you can bet your future
that its going to happen. And do you think that Heavenly Father would let his
beloved son, who still had a mission to fulfill, go down in a sinking ship? No!
Now tie this to our day. Don’t jump ship as the future days get rough and scary.
We will receive persecution, we will feel as if we will fail. But if Jesus is
on the ship, and i promise that he is, then this ship is not going down! But we
must also do our part to stay in the ship and not get tossed out.
Ill
end with a Japanese quote that has become one of my favorites. ““If not I, then
who? If not now, then when?” Hopefully while reading this, something has come
to your mind that you should do. Now all you need to do is do it! We can be our
personal beacons in Zion, but it all starts with change.
Sorry
this was one was longer than usual, but i hope it wasn’t a waste of my time to
write this.
I’m
loving life and i cant wait to help in the Lord’s work in columbia, tn.
Love
Y’all!
🇺🇸Elder
Williams🇲🇽
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| The whole Mission with Elder Holland |
