District Leader Council

Family,

 

Another positive week in the mission field.

It is quite sad to hear of the passing of Cherie... I got a call from President Greer last night about it and I figured I would hear more today. My prayers are with the family. I wish I could be there.

Hermiston is doing well. We got 32 new investigators this week as a zone. That is amazing. Last week we got 36. As I have said before these numbers are incredible. We have 14 missionaries in our zone which is half the size as some other zones yet we are finding just as much and often more than most zones in the mission right now. We hope to keep it up! We have some really good missionaries right now.

We had a recent District Leader Council with Elder Babbitt and Elder Hundley and Elder Hutchens and I did a mini-training for them. I prepared a few Old Testament stories in Daniel 3 and 6 for the training and linked it all to leadership and how to be better leaders. Something that I learned as I taught was this: Shadrach Meshach and Abednego were commanded to worship a golden image that king Nebuchadnezzar created. They refused and they were brought before the king. In Daniel 3:16 it says something along the lines of "they were not careful with their words". I thought that was really cool. Sometimes other missionaries will try to influence us to not follow the rules completely and as leaders we shouldn't be "careful with our words" we shouldn't tip-toe around their feelings. We should be bold and loving and firm in obedience like Shadrach Meshach and Abednego.

The second story is about Daniel and the lion's den. and that is found in Daniel 6. I think it's in verse 5 where the presidents and princes realized that Daniel was way too righteous for them to find any fault in him so they had to make a law against obedience to catch him. Sometimes that happens in the mission field too. Missionaries can make it seem unpopular to follow a particular rule in the mission field and they almost create this "law against obedience". Just like in Daniel 6 when the law was made that you couldn't pray. Daniel stood firm and did it anyway and was cast into a den of lions as punishment. But by his faith he was delivered out of danger. And then the Lord caused the Presidents and Preists and their women and children to be cast into the den and they were ripped into pieces and eaten up!!! Isn't the old testament great???

Anyway. This is less of an email and more of a lecture at this point but I thought that was cool. And isn't it funny how we learn more when we teach rather than when we're being taught? So bear your testimony! It will do more for you than it will do for anyone else.

Speaking of that. I got to bear my testimony twice again yesterday. I think that's 8 times in the last three months...

We had another 'Hasten the Work' meeting last night. This one was much larger than the one in Yakima. It was in tri-cities (about 40 minutes from Hermiston) and Elder Risenmay, President Greer and Elder Maynes of the Presidency of the Seventy were there. It was pretty much identical to the meeting we had in Yakima. I was blessed to be at two of them. Elder Maynes part was completely new though. But, About 6 months ago Elder Maynes came to our mission and I got to hear him speak and he used a lot of the same material again haha. So it was a lot of repeating but it was all good.

Elder Maynes mad the comparison that Joseph Smith was essentially the first investigator in this last dispensation. And he is the best example of any investigator ever. He had a question and he did his best to find the truth. And in this instance Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ represent the first missionary companionship of the final dispensation and every missionary companionship to follow them was following their lead. I though that was pretty weighty. I really do represent the Savior as a missionary for this church. And I may be the closest thing to the Savior that some of these people will ever experience. That gives a whole new meaning to my mission.

Elder Maynes also discusses that we need to change from the theoretical to the application. Everyone is excited about all the new missionaries and we've been making plans for years to be better member missionaries and full-time missionaries but now is the time to put those plans to action! Exciting times to be a member of the church :).

Elder Hutchens and I are doing great. He has a ton of really great ideas to find. Very creative. It will be a good transfer. We have a baptism lined up for the next two weeks. Kinley Neely (13) and Natalie Trotter (46). We have been working with these two families for a long time now and it will be wonderful to see them enter the waters of baptism. Natalie will be a wonderful member. She has been living the commandments for years now. It just took a little bit to get her to see the truth.

Busy busy week ahead. And a busy month too! I hope we can keep everything straight... I hope I'm not forgetting anything!!! There's so much to keep track of recently.

Well. This was a good email. Sorry for preaching at you.

Love,
Elder Paxman