Hastening of the Lord's Work

Hello all family and friends!!!

This last week, and really the last week continuing up into this last week, has been an interesting, difficult, amazing, and revelatory experience. It has been two weeks of lows, and then highs because of the revelation and Spirit felt on my part.

Last Sunday, following a difficult point in my mission, I prayed to the Lord and asked what could be done to resolve the concerns I had about the work, a miracle or something we needed to do. As I prayed, however, I felt the strong impression, ˝Wait, I am sending a miracle˝. Difficult to believe in the moment, but I simply had to put faith in the prompting. Little did I know that night as we slept the Lord was sending a miracle, in the form of The Work of Salvation broadcast, a Church wide broadcast on strengthening and fully utilizing the work of the missionaries.

The broadcast to the whole world was exactly what the Lord had referred to as the miracle he was sending. We watched it on Tuesday morning, and the Spirit I received from it carried me to today, changed how I do missionary work, gave me hope and peace, and most importantly a measure of the Spirit in my life where for the first time on my mission I realized what it means to ˝Preach My Gospel by the Spirit˝.

In terms of the changes announced by the broadcast, that missionaries will start to use the Internet in email, Facebook, blogs, mormon.org, and so forth, in addition to getting iPads, leaves me incredibly excited. Now missionary work, at least with the finding part and organizing with people, will be more similar to real life, instead of methods which are different and... old fashioned? Not to mention of course having all the digital materials and language materials at easy access would be a God send. It will all be phased in over the next year or so.

But the material was also another answer, specifically the answer to my prayer. The Lord was sending a storm from the horizon to motivate and strengthen the members to serve each other and their friends, acquaintances, and family in order to one, strengthen themselves, and two to direct them to us and to Christ.

The Spirit I received from the broadcast also strengthened me personally with an indescribable measure of the Spirit. With this Spirit, I followed His directions completely for the first time in my life, and found an indescribable amount of help, guidance, and happiness. I stopped coming up with premeditated idea statements and rather would let the Spirit give me what to say once I saw the actual person. The result was a true love for the people which they definitely recognized. I barely had anyone rudely reject me without having a nice conversation with them, despite them not being interested. It added and created a right, dynamic, and loving form of missionary work I had not yet experienced.

Also in this time, one night as I prayed, the Lord afforded me a glimpse of my whole mission and how it is turning out. For the first time in my whole mission, I have practically no people to teach. Before now, it had been, not easy to find, but doable on a consistent basis. As a result I have generally always taught a lot and feel that I have become particularly good at teaching, even if the people I taught were only marginally interested. Now however, the Lord showed me that now that I have become a good teacher, the Lord is giving me this drought of people to teach, to teach me how to find on my own to be able to better perfect me as a missionary.

Over all, this week was capped by the first fruits of our labors. We found our first new person to teach in weeks last night right before we had to go home. We met her at her door and I spoke to her by the Spirit as I mentioned I have begun to do. We went back to check on her to see if she wanted to meet and she did. Talking outside in the public park, she has been searching for a church for many years, but has been unsuccessful so far. She said the moment she saw us at the door and heard our words, she could tell we were something different, and that the Spirit was with us. She has had many difficult experiences, but has drawn close and is sensitive to the Lord because of it. Now we only have to follow the Lord's direction for her.

Also, the branch presidency has become focused on members working and assisting the missionaries as well. This is the first time ever I have seen this. Instead of being asked who we met with this week, we talked about who we can go contact together, or what friends and family to meet with together.

The Lord has sent a storm which I feel is beginning to stir the pool. Amazing things are happening, and incredible spiritual growth is occurring. Here's to the Hastening of the Lord's Work!

-Starešina Benson