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| With my "Son" Elder Short - who I trained, and my "Grandson" - who Elder Short trained! |
October 5, 2015
Hello everyone!!
What a great weekend we had!! It was so cool to watch live the
experience of sustaining THREE new apostles of the Lord. Certainly not a thing
that happens often. That is so cool that dad was Elder Renlund's assistant
executive secretary! And Elder Stevenson is WAY young...he still has a son on a
mission!! That is very cool.
I thought all of the talks given were fantastic. I really
enjoyed Elder Nelson's talk on women, and Elder Lawrence talk on the Holy
Ghost. And Elder Durrant's talk on “ponderizing” was awesome as well! I had a
hunch that you guys would jump on that and choose a ponderize scripture of the
week...and I am going to join you in whatever scripture you choose! So please
let me know what the ponderizing scripture of the week so I can be part of it
also. I am so grateful that we have a prophet who leads and guides this church
and who is so valiant...he was definitely deteriorating as the talk went on,
but he still delivered a great message…keep the commandments! I certainly
missed going to priesthood meeting with Dad and Nathan. Priesthood on the west coast is from 5-7 so
it feels a lot different; we get out and still have an evening to proselyte. I
am looking forward to attending priesthood with Dad and Nathan again…it is
always so much fun to be there with all those guys dressed in white shirts and
ties. The church is true; there is no doubt about that.
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| Welcoming the new missionaries at the airport |
Transfers went very smoothly this past week, probably the
smoothest they have ever gone. We said goodbye to 9 missionaries, and welcomed
20 into the mission. It was a crazy day, as usual, and my back hurt (as usual)
from moving all the luggage, but it was a total blast...as usual. Elder Short
is training a new missionary, which means I have a Grandson!!! Haha I attached
a picture of my posterity...my father is dead, so its only Elder Short, Elder
Labrum, and I left in the family tree. But the posterity tie is still in the
mission, so no worries.
On Wednesday, we spent most of the day running around the area
dropping off miscellaneous supplies and things needed from the missionaries who
transferred...like one set of Elders moved into Sisters’ area, and they called
and asked us to bring them 2 desks. We
wondered what the last Sisters had studied on, and we found out that they had
been studying on the floor for like the past 4 months!
On Friday, we had our monthly MLC (Mission Leadership
Conference) meeting, which was a total blast, as usual. I find it quite hard to prepare trainings to
give at these meetings, because we have a group of the best missionaries in the
mission...and we have to somehow make them better! So it definitely provides me
with the opportunity to improve myself, as I prepare to train the Zone Leaders and
the Sister Training Leaders. I often wish they could train me, which they often
do, but we ALWAYS train at MLC, and I wish I could just sit back and learn from
them. But oh well, they are always so much fun.
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| The GREENIES!! (New missionaries) |
One of the trainings we received at MLC was from President
Perry, who is in the mission presidency. He trained on “loyalty,” and it was
phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. In our white missionary handbook there is a
line that says, "your loyalty is first to the Lord, then to the Mission
President, then to other missionaries (including your companion). He talked
about that, and what loyalty means, but he also talked about how our loyalty
ALWAYS needs to first be to the Lord. Before our family, our friends, or
anything else. If He comes first and we are loyal to Him before anyone and
anything, then we will be okay. If we are loyal to our companion before the
Lord, then that certainly provides room for disaster. The same is true within a
family...can you imagine if spouses were loyal to their kids before they are
loyal to their spouse? Total disaster! There are many examples of that today in
the world. I know that as we put the Lord first in everything we do, things
will workout. He will guide our paths in such a way that we will never go
wrong. There will still be trials and many hard things in life, but we will be
able to eventually overcome those...even if it means waiting until the next
life.
I know for me I will always have the Lord at the top of my
Loyalty Hierarchy. There is no other way to go. There are TONS of examples in
the scriptures of people being loyal to the Lord first. Take Captain Moroni for
example, when he is battling the Lamanites. The Lord tells him that he will
bless Moroni and his armies as long as they are only fighting to defend themselves.
If they start to attack and kill more than is necessary, then the Lord will
take away his help. Moroni has Zarahemnah and his people at his mercy in Alma
44. He has them surrounded, and could have easily just killed them and ended
the conflict. But doing so, he would give up the Lord's blessing, so instead he
put them under a covenant of peace. There are boatloads of other examples of
people in the scriptures being loyal to the Lord before anything or anyone
else. And there are also examples of people not putting the Lord first...take
Laman and Lemuel for example. I am very grateful for the training we received
at MLC.
On the missionary work side of things, we have some sad
news...Teresa is moving! She is moving into Reno, which we are sad about
because we have spent so much time with her and working with her to try and
help her progress, but we know that is truly an answer to our prayers because
she is moving in with a girlfriend, and will be able to live the law of
chastity. And the people she will be
living with do not smoke, so she won't have such a strong temptation anymore.
She even admitted it herself, that she will be baptized MUCH sooner once she
moves. She is supposed to move this week, so we will have one last pass-off
lesson with her, and then let the other Elders in Reno take over.
Lavanda is doing well. She attended at least 3 sessions of
general conference, and listened intently to the messages. We moved her baptism
day for October 17th, and she is set on making that day. There seems to be
nothing that would hold her back at this point.
We have begun teaching a new investigator, Jackie. Jackie
doesn't come across as someone who is interested in the church at first
glance...she is covered in tattoos and drives a motorcycle. But she is very
sweet lady. She is probably about 50 or 60, and we originally found her because
we had a referral for her grandson. She lives with 5 of her grandsons, ages 18
to 7. We have to really meet them, but we first stopped by and she said that
she wasn't interested but that we could come and teach her grandsons, because
they needed God in their life. Then we left for zone conferences and got super
busy and went about a month without seeing them and we finally stopped by and
she said, "I was wondering what happened to you guys! Can you come over
sometime when the grandsons aren't home so I can focus on your message?" Her
heart had TOTALLY changed. We left her with a pamphlet about the restoration of
the gospel and came back the next day with President Chesnut and taught her the
Restoration. She loved every bit of it and said, "Wow, you Mormons aren't
as bad as everyone makes you out to be! I want to go around and tell everyone
that the common conception of Mormons is wrong!" She loved President Chesnut,
too haha, and at the end of the lesson asked about baptism and said, "I
need to be baptized, my Mom always told me that baptism was very important, but
I still need to do it." We gave her a church tour a few days ago, and she
loved that, too. We are going over to her house in a few hours to teach her
more and we are pumped. I will keep you posted on her progress.
That's all for this week. I am excited to have my first full
week of proselyting since about 6 weeks ago!! I know that this is the Lord's
kingdom, and His work. I know that anyone who tries it out and follows the
Savior's example and accepts his invitation to be baptized by proper Priesthood
authority will be blessed. I know it.
I love you guys!! Have a wonderful week.
Love,
Elder Richman Dawg
P.S. I have located a ZPizza here in Reno...!!! One of these
days I am going to have to try it out and see if it’s as good as I remember.
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