Hola Familia y Amigos!!
Well, this week was a really good week. I think I've told y'all about
this before, but we've been striving as a mission to each and every
one of us contact 20 new people each day, teach 3 lessons, and invite
1 person to be baptized. In the past I've let excuses influence how
much I strived to fulfill these goals, but this week Elder Merrell and
I have really been striving to do that. While teaching 3 lessons and
inviting 1 person to baptism are a lot harder to control (other
people's agency is involved) we have been focusing a lot on contacting
the 20 new people every day. As I've done this I've felt a lot better
about what I've been doing as a missionary. We've seen many miracles
as well, mainly small ones, but miracles nonetheless. I think about
all the commandments that God gives us and how sometimes it's really
easy to let excuses influence how hard we work toward doing what God
wants us to do. If there's something I've been really learning lately
it's that Heavenly Father has High Expectations for each of us; He has
the Highest Expectation, that we become like Him, perfect and
glorified. And that while He expects that of us, He also loves us soo
much that He understands that we aren't perfect, and He provided His
Son, Jesus Christ to give us the hope, the Faith, the power and
ability that need to be able to progress and press forward and to
eventually become what He knows we can become.
To contrast that I want to talk briefly about something fairly
serious. That is the reality of Satan. I know I didn't realize before
my mission, and somewhat not even during the beginning of my mission,
how real, and how powerful he is. Recently I've had some experiences
and President Alba has talked to the mission on this subject and for
some reason I felt like I should talk some about it to y'all. Satan
doesn't want this great missionary work to go on, but more
importantly, he doesn't want each and every one of us to return to our
Heavenly Father, and he will do everything he can to influence us to
make choices to not do so. He tries to influence what we think, what
we feel, and even the circumstances around us in order to tempt,
confuse, and snare us. I have had to combat evil thoughts, fear,
feelings of depression, tiredness, or sadness, as well as temptations
and traps that have been laid before me. I don't always win. I am an
imperfect being, we all are. As The Lord hastens His work Satan
becomes more desperate and hastens his. As each of us individually
strengthen ourselves in the Savior, Satan attacks us in more unique,
subtle, and powerful ways because he is more desperate to make us
tumble. Be wary of his beguiling ways; always be watchful and never be
complacent with "doing pretty good" or "at least I'm not...". Heavenly
Father expects perfection from us, and until we've achieved that we
must always be "pressing forward with steadfast faith in Christ".
But the good news of this Gospel we have is that despite Satan's power
and his devices, Christ and His power and Gospel will always triumph.
He will always win, in every battle, large or small. Through
continually developing Faith, Repenting daily, keeping our Covenants,
and always striving to feel and follow the Holy Spirit we can overcome
Satan and be cleansed from the filthiness of sin. We have many
resources to give us strength and power to follow this Gospel,
including the Scriptures, Priesthood blessings, the Sacrament and
church classes, General Conference, and many, many more sources of
strength and comfort in times of trial. I know of these things for
myself and I know as y'all follow the Gospel of Christ you will be
blessed more than you can imagine.
I don't know exactly why I felt like sharing this with y'all, probably
just to make it more clear and firm in my own mind and to strengthen
my own testimony, but I hope y'all gain something from it as well. I
love y'all and hope this next week is marvelous!
-Elder Whitaker
Well, this week was a really good week. I think I've told y'all about
this before, but we've been striving as a mission to each and every
one of us contact 20 new people each day, teach 3 lessons, and invite
1 person to be baptized. In the past I've let excuses influence how
much I strived to fulfill these goals, but this week Elder Merrell and
I have really been striving to do that. While teaching 3 lessons and
inviting 1 person to baptism are a lot harder to control (other
people's agency is involved) we have been focusing a lot on contacting
the 20 new people every day. As I've done this I've felt a lot better
about what I've been doing as a missionary. We've seen many miracles
as well, mainly small ones, but miracles nonetheless. I think about
all the commandments that God gives us and how sometimes it's really
easy to let excuses influence how hard we work toward doing what God
wants us to do. If there's something I've been really learning lately
it's that Heavenly Father has High Expectations for each of us; He has
the Highest Expectation, that we become like Him, perfect and
glorified. And that while He expects that of us, He also loves us soo
much that He understands that we aren't perfect, and He provided His
Son, Jesus Christ to give us the hope, the Faith, the power and
ability that need to be able to progress and press forward and to
eventually become what He knows we can become.
To contrast that I want to talk briefly about something fairly
serious. That is the reality of Satan. I know I didn't realize before
my mission, and somewhat not even during the beginning of my mission,
how real, and how powerful he is. Recently I've had some experiences
and President Alba has talked to the mission on this subject and for
some reason I felt like I should talk some about it to y'all. Satan
doesn't want this great missionary work to go on, but more
importantly, he doesn't want each and every one of us to return to our
Heavenly Father, and he will do everything he can to influence us to
make choices to not do so. He tries to influence what we think, what
we feel, and even the circumstances around us in order to tempt,
confuse, and snare us. I have had to combat evil thoughts, fear,
feelings of depression, tiredness, or sadness, as well as temptations
and traps that have been laid before me. I don't always win. I am an
imperfect being, we all are. As The Lord hastens His work Satan
becomes more desperate and hastens his. As each of us individually
strengthen ourselves in the Savior, Satan attacks us in more unique,
subtle, and powerful ways because he is more desperate to make us
tumble. Be wary of his beguiling ways; always be watchful and never be
complacent with "doing pretty good" or "at least I'm not...". Heavenly
Father expects perfection from us, and until we've achieved that we
must always be "pressing forward with steadfast faith in Christ".
But the good news of this Gospel we have is that despite Satan's power
and his devices, Christ and His power and Gospel will always triumph.
He will always win, in every battle, large or small. Through
continually developing Faith, Repenting daily, keeping our Covenants,
and always striving to feel and follow the Holy Spirit we can overcome
Satan and be cleansed from the filthiness of sin. We have many
resources to give us strength and power to follow this Gospel,
including the Scriptures, Priesthood blessings, the Sacrament and
church classes, General Conference, and many, many more sources of
strength and comfort in times of trial. I know of these things for
myself and I know as y'all follow the Gospel of Christ you will be
blessed more than you can imagine.
I don't know exactly why I felt like sharing this with y'all, probably
just to make it more clear and firm in my own mind and to strengthen
my own testimony, but I hope y'all gain something from it as well. I
love y'all and hope this next week is marvelous!
-Elder Whitaker