"QUENCH NOT THE SPIRIT"
Hello my friends!
This week was packed with miracles!
Monday: Aside from usual preparation day activities, we were able to go to a member home for tea and family home evening. It was an enjoyable time and we showed them the video "The Music of the Gospel". It's a really good video, and I invite all of you to watch it!
Tuesday: We had to leave early this day to travel to Crosby for a street display, and as such, we had to plan on the bus. I referenced an area that I wanted to tract, and Elder Carroll agreed. We found out later that the area I had mentioned was not where I pointed, so we ended up tracting a different road. We tracted the whole road, and right before we finished we were talking about "fourth floor, last door". Guess what? The last door on the street was interested in meeting with us, and we have another appointment next Tuesday!
(Side note: somehow I've forgotten my name! There have been multiple times where we'll be tracting and I'll introduce "this is Elder Burns" realizing at this point that I've dug myself too deep, "and I'm Elder Carroll"....... it's bad!)
Wednesday: today was the calm before the storm (in a good way). It was a really off day. We had weird things happen in the morning that delayed our planning. We also had a lot of appointments fall through. One of these appointments was Ward Council. We didn't have a back up plan for this, so we felt so lost for the rest of the night. We decided to street contact, but at that time of night we didn't pass anyone. We got home feeling like we wasted the day away.
That was the calm, now comes the storm.
The snowball effect of miracles started with Thursday. Zone conference! Zone conferences are always so good, and they revitalize my spirit and get me even more excited to do the work and apply the principles that were taught. Zone conference really inspired Elder Carroll and I, and we have been analyzing how we can become more effective missionaries through those principles. We talked a lot about Finding and different ways that we could change it up and get out of routines. It was really good! One thing that really stuck out to me was said by President McReynolds, "You can't gossip one minute and feel the spirit the next." I feel like this is very true, and a principle that we need to strive to always live so the spirit can be with us. A great example of this principle is Joseph Smith.
Elder Stephan A. West addressed this in his talk “Are You On the Lord's Side?”,
"It happened to Joseph Smith. Over a very small thing, he temporarily lost the Spirit. He found he couldn’t translate unless he was worthy to be guided by the Spirit of God. David Whitmer recounted this situation. He said “something went wrong about the house and [Joseph] was put out about it. Something that Emma, his wife, had done. Oliver and I went upstairs and Joseph came up soon after to continue the translation, but he could not do anything. He could not translate a single syllable. He went downstairs, out into the orchard, and made supplication to the Lord; was gone about an hour—came back to the house, and asked Emma’s forgiveness and then came upstairs where we were and then the translation went on all right. He could do nothing save he was humble and faithful” (A Comprehensive History of the Church, 1:131).
"Joseph Smith must have felt he had lost the Spirit. He had to go and think about it, ponder it, pray about it, come in and apologize to Emma, and then he could translate again.
"Every day we have to work to keep the Spirit. Every day there are things that can happen in our lives. …we may see something that we were not looking for: a poster, a magazine, or something on the street. It may cause us to lose the Spirit. We have to work to keep it, to bring it back, to have it in our lives. To be on the Lord’s side... is what is important."
“Quench not the Spirit” (1 Thes. 5:19).
Friday: Interviews with President and Sister McReynolds! I was able to address some of my concerns, as well as receive personal council. Being able to talk with President and Sister McReynolds is always good. Later that day we had a tea appointment at the Chalmers home, but because we had an appointment scheduled, it was literally a grab and go! We were only there for 15ish minutes. That evening we were able to meet with Natacha and her mom, Chaela. The meeting went really well! Chaela had met with the missionaries before, and remembered a lot about Joseph Smith. She committed to read and pray, and we even got a return tea appointment for this next Wednesday! We are hoping that we'll be able to get the whole family involved on that day. They are such a good family, full of love for each other and God.
Saturday: This day started off in an interesting way. We had a street display in Bootle, and it was one of much adversity. A few things: 1) someone tore our banner down and broke it, 2) I was spat at..... twice (they spat at the floor in front of me, not me personally, so that was good!) 3) Had a man battle with me about religion, and he said at one point "I know a word, only one other person knows I know this word, but this word makes me more powerful than any being in the universe, multiverse, or megaverse!" I honestly did not know how to respond to that one! While the adversary tried his best to discourage, it did the opposite. As we looked at these, we thought "there is someone who needs our message today. So we pressed on!
That evening there was a baptism in Liverpool, and we had invited many of our investigators. We had two reply that they wanted to go ( this was around 4:30, the baptism at 6, and Liverpool was about 45 minutes away,). We had been calling around for rides, but everyone was busy and couldn't take us. Elder Carroll and I didn't know what to do. Eventually, we prayerfully decided to call the investigators and cancel. During the call we got a message from a member saying they could take us! The two loved the baptism so much! They themselves expressed a great desire to be baptised and even asked to come to church! They expressed that they are wanting to change, and have that new start that comes through baptism.
Later that night, we were trying to contact a progressing friend, Kim, who had gone radio silent for about two weeks. We were thinking she was disinterested and we were getting ready to call her friend, Lilly, to see if she had heard anything. In that same moment, phone in hand, we got a call from Lilly! She said that Kim had tomorrow off and that she was coming to church! She also mentioned that a friend of hers, who is being taught in Liverpool, is on date to be baptised!
Sunday: We had an amazing Sunday, and all the talks were so powerful! They were all about our values and how when we live them, we qualify ourselves to have the spirit in our life. Our lesson in Gospel Principles was on the Holy Ghost as well! Kim was able to make it, and she seemed to really enjoy church! We are hoping to continue meeting with her! That night we were messaging Natacha and asked her how her reading was doing. She replied that she was studying Alma 32 just then! She had many questions and was very open with them. We were able to help her find a few answers, but many of them she had answered herself through studying! It is so neat seeing her progression!
Invitation of the Week
“Quench not the Spirit” (1 Thes. 5:19). If you find yourself in a situation where the spirit cannot easily reside, or perhaps you see something, hear something, even gossip, or have an impure thought, stop. Do everything you can to right that and continue on with the spirit. Always live worthy of the Holy Ghost's presence.
Have a good week! I love you all,
Elder Burns
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