So, we had a fist bump prayer with him.

May 01, 2018

So, we had a fist bump prayer with him.

I found a cool hat!

Hello Everyone!

Well well, another week come and gone. I have to say, it was a pretty decent one, if I do say so myself. So, we started off with an Exchange with the Zone Leaders. They came over Tuesday morning, and we went out and blitzed an apartment complex. I was working with Elder Crockett for the day, and we had some pretty good contacts there. It was probably one of the most productive mornings that I had for awhile. After that we went to teach Geraldine. That lesson was all over the place. Lots of good talk there, but I think that we hit a point from all of the lessons. It was interesting. Then we had a pretty short lesson with Jeremy because he had some family with him, and we didn't want to keep him from them for too long. We walked back to our apartment after that(about an hour walk)and then did dinner. We then biked to Itasca(an hours ride)and we did some finding up there. Good exercise was done that day.

Wednesday we started off with District Meeting. We had a bunch of role pays of diversifying our contacts and the things we use. We drove around for a bit after that, and we ended up in Addison after that, and we had two cool experiences. The first, we stopped by a former in the area, and we were just checking in to see how she was doing. We got to talking, and we invited her to church. When we gave her the address, she gave the card that we gave her a weird look, and she slowly backed into her apartment. We thought we did something wrong, but she came back to the door, holding another card that was identical to the one we gave her, only this one was turning yellow with age, and it had the church address on it too! She then talked about how she had been holding on to it for all of these years, and just the night before, she had prayed vocally for the first time in 3 years. That was awesome!

The next thing was Reverend Nelson. We just were talking to him, and we asked if we could say a prayer with him. His response was to put his fist out in front of him. So, we had a fist bump prayer with him. That was fun. We then went and helped a lady clean up a bit of her apartment. Then we had dinner, and we drove up to Arlington Heights for another Exchange with the Zone Leaders.

So, Exchange two happened Thursday. That was a crazy day. I worked with Elder Geisel that day. We went to some apartments in the morning, and we had a good time there. We were just walking down the road, and some guy stops his car and says, "Are you Mormons?". We said yes, and he replies, "Excellent!". Very intrigued, we went to talk with him. He knew about us because of a podcast that he listened to about the Book of Mormon. So, we gave him a hard copy, and he went on his way. Who just stops for us though???? Still trying to figure that one out.

After that, we ran into a former, and we actually had a pretty decent lesson with her. She was super interested in learning from missionaries again, so we got a time to come back to meet with her. After that was lunch, and then we went out finding. We ran into Dan and Frank during that. They weren't too interested in talking about the gospel, but the were both really down to talking about shingles and golf. It was kind of a funny discussion. Then we taught Nancy. She is a super nice lady, she just has one thing that is holding her back from being baptized. It is a hard thing for her to get past, but I think that she will be able to.

We went to teach a Restoration lesson to another investigator after that, but man, that one was crazy. She had a ton of good questions, but she was all over the place. It was kind of a hectic lesson. We did some dinner after that, and talked with a recent convert about prayer and personal revelation. Then just some finding until right before the end of the night. We had one more stop to make after that. Elder Geisel took me to Oberweis, and we ate ice cream and made some goals together. It was a pretty good talk right there. I also stroked him at a game of chess. That was fun.

Friday, we woke up, and we had a long, but really good talk about how we can create more unity within the Zone. A lot of good ideas were backed around there, and I was happy to sit in on that discussion. Afterwards, we drove back to our area, and we had lunch and Weekly Planning. The rest of that day was just some easy finding. We did find a new investigator named Edward though, so that was cool.

Saturday was a day of service! So, we started to going to the gym with Brother Filio, and we played racquetball with him and one of his sons. That game is intense, but a ton of fun! Then we just shot some hoops for a little, before we had to exchange the cars. We went to a lesson after that but it fell through. A member came to get us though for service, so we just went and helped him out in our Proselyting cloths. We helped him move 100 big bricks out of some guys basement, and then arrange them around in his yard. That was a workout. We then went right to Brother Filio's house, and we helped him with a bit of yard work. He took us to see Geraldine right after that, and we had a much more focused lesson with her this time. Then, we came home and had a DLC on Zone Unity.

Sunday was a pretty easy day. Elder Parkinson, Brother Filio, and I all gave talks in Sacrament Meeting. They went pretty well. Not much else happened in church. Lots of talk on Ministering though. After that we did a few studies,

Elder Jensen

***Elder Jensen shared the talk he gave in church with me in another email, so I am adding it to this post.

Follow the Spirit!

Good morning Brothers and Sisters!

So, I should probably start off with a bit of introductory remarks. My name is Elder Jensen, and I am from Washington state. I am the 2nd of 5 kids, and I love my family to death. And good thing I get to talk first, because that means that I get to be the youth speaker!

It is my prayer today though that I will be able to touch each of you with the words that I have prepared today, and that it will stir some thoughts within you. I am going to speak on listening to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. But first, I want to talk a little about faith, and what that is. Well we read in Alma:

"...faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true."(Alma 32:21).

That is pretty clear cut to me. We have a hope for things that aren't seen, but we know to be true. Another way to say this, is that we have trust. Trust in something, even though we may not be able to see the results of that trust. And one final thing that I want to mention about faith, and that come from a scripture in James. It says:

"For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."(James 26:2) If we are not acting on the beliefs that we have, then what good is it to have our belief? I want y'all to remember this, alright?

Now, let's talk about the Spirit.

So, how then do we receive spiritual promptings?

"Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart." (D&C 8:2)

When the Holy Ghost speaks to us, it is usually in a manner that is not one that is loud and tumultuous. We read in 1 Kings 19:

"And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice."

As we can see, He generally speaks in a still, small voice, that if we are not listening for, we will probably miss. That is because the Spirit is not going to push us if we aren't in a state to be willing to listen him. He has it easy, being an eternal being. He can wait for as long as it takes us to be willing to listen to him. We also need to be worthy to be able to have the companionship of the Spirit. If we are out doing things that we know that we shouldn't be doing, then how can we expect the Spirit of the Lord to be able to talk with us and tell us what we need to be doing? He can't, because we are not living our lives in accordance with things that will allow him to abide with us, and he will withdraw. That is when we need to repent and change our lives so that we can have his companionship again.

Now, when we are ready to listen, he will tell us what we need to do. Again, we can choose whether to listen or not. The Holy Ghost will never infringe on out agency. We know that we will be blessed if we listen, even if the things we hear are not that appealing to us sometimes. That is when we bring faith back into this. We must have faith in the Spirit, and trust that what he is telling is to do is the best thing that can be done in that moment. We must not hesitate. We must act immediately! Otherwise, the Spirit will depart and we probably will have missed out on blessings that could have helped us, or others that are around us.

I have two stories that I want to share. The first is the story that was shared in a recent general conference talk by Elder Taylor he says:

"During the Korean War, Ensign Frank Blair served on a troop transport ship stationed in Japan. The ship wasn’t large enough to have a formal chaplain, so the captain asked Brother Blair to be the ship’s informal chaplain, having observed that the young man was a person of faith and principle, highly respected by the whole crew. Ensign Blair wrote:

'Our ship was caught in a huge typhoon. The waves were about 45 feet [14 m] high. I was on watch … during which time one of our three engines stopped working and a crack in the centerline of the ship was reported. We had two remaining engines, one of which was only functioning at half power. We were in serious trouble.”
Ensign Blair finished his watch and was getting into bed when the captain knocked on his door. He asked, “Would you please pray for this ship?” Of course, Ensign Blair agreed to do so.
At that point, Ensign Blair could have simply prayed, “Heavenly Father, please bless our ship and keep us safe,” and then gone to bed. Instead, he prayed to know if there was something he could do to help ensure the safety of the ship. In response to Brother Blair’s prayer, the Holy Ghost prompted him to go to the bridge, speak with the captain, and learn more. He found that the captain was trying to determine how fast to run the ship’s remaining engines. Ensign Blair returned to his cabin to pray again.
He prayed, “What can I do to help address the problem with the engines?”
In response, the Holy Ghost whispered that he needed to walk around the ship and observe to gather more information. He again returned to the captain and asked for permission to walk around the deck. Then, with a lifeline tied around his waist, he went out into the storm.
Standing on the stern, he observed the giant propellers as they came out of the water when the ship crested a wave. Only one was working fully, and it was spinning very fast. After these observations, Ensign Blair once again prayed. The clear answer he received was that the remaining good engine was under too much strain and needed to be slowed down. So he returned to the captain and made that recommendation. The captain was surprised, telling him that the ship’s engineer had just suggested the opposite—that they increase the speed of the good engine in order to outrun the storm. Nevertheless, the captain chose to follow Ensign Blair’s suggestion and slowed the engine down. By dawn the ship was safely in calm waters.
Only two hours later, the good engine stopped working altogether. With half power in the remaining engine, the ship was able to limp into port.
The captain said to Ensign Blair, “If we had not slowed that engine when we did, we would have lost it in the middle of the storm.'”

Just like in this story we can all be like frank Blair and those people around us can all be like the ship how the ship was being tossed about and beaten upon by the storm those people all around us even ourselves are beaten upon and tossed about by the trails and challenges that can face us today but just like Ensign Blair we can be that person that helps them put through into calm waters all we need to do is truly love people and pray for them but pray for what we can do to help them and act on that prompting that will come through the holy spirit by doing so all of our ships will make it through to Port we will all make it into safety and those struggling ships will make it as well. We have been given this gospel as a lighthouse to guide us into the safety that only our God can provide.

The other story that I want to tell is one from my mission that I had. Way back when in my first area, I was working with my trainer in contacting less active members who were around. We get to one of their houses, and we knock on the door. The person who answered was just the guy who lived upstairs, and he informed us that the person we were looking for wasn't there currently. We thanked him for that, and then we turned to leave. As we were walking back to our car, we both felt that we should look behind us to see where the man that we talked to was. We did, and we saw him bent over the engine of his car, looking a little frustrated. We went over to see what was up, and he told us about how his car died, even though the day before he had taken it in to the shop to fix the same problem. It was also a problem because he needed this car to run so that he could get to his job that he just recently was able to get. So, we offered our help. We pushed his car down a side street where it would be out of the way of main traffic, and we jumped his car, and we even found what was draining his battery life in his car. He was super grateful for our help, and he asked us why we did that for him. We told him that we felt that we needed to talk with him again, and then we began to teach him about who we were, and what we do. He ended up being a very solid investigator of the church.

So, to wrap this up, when we receive a spiritual prompting, we need to have the faith, or trust, that the Holy Ghost knows what's up, and that by listening to him, we can receive many blessings, and that we can be a blessing to those around us. We may not know what is going on in the lives of those around us, but God does, and he will send His Spirit to us so that he can let us know what we can help those around us. And I can testify to you all today, that God loves all of his children, and that it is through us that he shows that love. We just need to be willing to act and show that love. I can promise you that as you listen and seek for these promptings, the Lord will use you to bless His children, and you will be blessed. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.