Missionary Work is Amazing

Hello!

Well, we had a pretty normal week. The work in the office continues to go well, and I've adjusted well to it. It is very interesting to see how the Church runs administratively. They have a great number of wonderful programs that allows everything to run smoothly. It's also been great being able to work with President Skelton closely, and to see how the Spirit inspires him and helps him as he does the Lord's work.

Yesterday, we had our mission tour where we had Elder Hallstrom of the First Quorum of the Seventy come train us on missionary work. Before that though, they had assigned us talk topics, and four of us would be selected to speak. I was convinced that I wouldn't have to since I was leading the music and performing a musical number. But, lo and behold, I was called to give a talk on personal worthiness. I definitely could have prepared better, but I think it went well overall. Through peparing for the talk, I came to understand in a deeper way, the difffernce between having clean hands, and having a pure heart. Elder Palfreyman explained it in a great way, where we can have clean hands because we are afraid of the consequences, or we're just participating in Church, and obeying the commandments because we have to. But, as I came to understand, having a pure heart means being able to appreciate what the Lord has done for us, to be able to draw on it, and do all that we can to be righteous because of our love for the Lord.

Anyhow, the training was wonderful, Elder and Sister Hallstrom gave great talks about how we need to be able to sense the urgency needed in missionary work, and the need to be obedient. Sister Hallstrom used a great example from the life of the prophet Nehemiah, and the urgency that he felt. It was uplifting and we had a great day.

Aside from that, we've been working on Mimi, our investigator, who belives in God and Jesus Christ, but who also believes in praying to Buddha. She says that if she can only pray to one, she'd pick Buddha. So, we're going to try tonight to help her understand that the Atonement of Christ is the only way, especially since Christ is the son of God, while Buddha was an enlightened man.

We've been spending most of our time finding people to teach, and I'm starting to appreciate more and more how I have the opprtunity right now to testify of Jesus Christ. I am so greateful for that. We almost got kicked out of a nativity exhibit for talking about the gospel, because the council of Churches in Singapore don't like us too much, and in a sense publicly humiliated us, but we just took it in our stride. We did our best to show Christian courage and show Christlike love for them.

I'm also appreciative being able to make many new aquaintances and friends. It's been wonderful being able to serve with people who I love, who in turn love the Lord. It is such a blessing to be a missionary. We've had a lot of fun and craziness at the same time, and it's great to see that we're all normal people who love to have clean , wholesome fun, though we do stupid things sometimes too. Elder Palfreyman and I have been getting close to Elder Mattox and Elder Merrill, who are two wonderful Elders.

Missionary work is amazing! Take care and have an awesome week!