Subject: Progressing Investigators is the Key!
Hello everyone!
This last week has gone well here in Vietnam! Pretty normal
missionary work week, but that means it was awesome! Because missionary work is
awesome! Also, I know conference just occurred, but I have not seen it yet...
In Vietnam, we watch conference a week after it happens. Because if we watched
it live, we would be starting it at 10 pm and 2 am to watch, and I don't think
anyone wants to do that... So instead we watch a recording of it a week after.
But we are just as excited to get to hear the counsel of the prophets and
apostles for us! How great it is to live in a day and age where we can hear
directly from God's called servants!
Well, our investigators are doing good. We had to take a step back with a few of them, but it was necessary and will help them a lot. After all, we are teaching real people with real concerns. There is no one size fits all teaching approach for the gospel, if there was, then we would just get robots to do the job. And also, the missionaries aren't really the ones who convert those they teach, they encourage them to take steps on their own, but we must all find out the truth for ourselves. So, we are trying to help our investigators take their own steps! With Anh Hung, we had to take a step back. I think we were working too fast at trying to get him to baptism, when he first needs to strengthen his faith more. And he told us that. He has faith in Jesus Christ, but is still seeking his answer on Joseph Smith being a prophet, and on if the Book of Mormon is true. So we are trying to help him to read the Book of Mormon and find his answer! Anyone who earnestly seeks will find that answer! I know he can receive that witness of the Spirit that the Book of Mormon is true! He just needs to read, and seek earnestly and he will find it! And Chi Chi is doing good too! She got to talk with Co Cuc Nga and Co Nhiem, and they were able to teach a little more personally to her, so she really enjoyed that. They both came to church on Sunday, and we had a great Sunday school lesson! It was on the Book of Mormon! We discussed what the Book of Mormon helps us know, such as about Jesus Christ being the Redeemer of the world, Joseph Smith being a prophet called of God, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints being his true restored church on the earth today! (Please see the introduction of the Book of Mormon for more on this). Then for a little fun, Elder Quoc had cut out some cardboard to make an arch to show what a keystone is, being the piece that holds the arch together, and we discussed how it is what holds the church together. All the other truths can be either proved or disproved by it. If the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph Smith is a prophet as he translated it, Jesus is the Christ as it testifies in so many ways, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is God's true church. That is why it is so important for each of us to "experiment upon the word" and see if it is true, because if it is, then it is what we need to follow. If you have not yet read the Book of Mormon, please do! I know you can get a witness of it for yourself! Oh, and then to finish our lesson, we showed Elder Holland's testimony on it from the talk "Safety for the Soul". Also, an excellent talk to look up.
Our other investigators are doing decent. Making good progress. We have a few coming back this week from business or other trips, and we are excited to see them again. And something else cool, we have a new focus for some of our investigators struggling with the fifth step of the gospel, enduring to the end. I mean, that is a tall order. When is the end? When are we done following the gospel? Well the answer is never. At least as far as we can currently see, there is not a point in this life where we will reach perfection and be done and not have to try anymore. I mean, if you get to that point, you get "taken up" like the city of Enoch. Sometimes it is hard to picture this. Sometimes we just wish to settle for having done enough. Hey, if I was good for most of my life, can't I just break bad at the end and be okay? No, that is not what God wants of us, nor living up to our potential. Actually, I think that is why God asks us to endure to the end. Because he can see our potential, and wants us to always work towards reaching that. Perfection is a long-term goal. We will make mistakes on the way, but that is okay, as long as we correct our course. That leads me to some examples President Chiles taught me in my interview this last week. He told me how one way to help those who are struggling with the concept of enduring to the end is to explain not just what the Sabbath is, but WHY we have it. Why do we have the Sabbath? I am sure there are many reasons, but the biggest one is so we can take the Sacrament. The Sacrament is a privilege we have that enables us to renew our baptismal covenant with God, to begin following him again like new. We can erase our mistakes of that week and press forward again. President Chiles shared with me an example he heard from a pilot about this. When you go on a plane flight, you usually think of the plane as flying straight from point a to point b, but in reality, there are a lot of factors that interfere with the plane, like wind, etc... It pushes the plane slightly off course to such an extent that the pilot must correct it, and the real flight of the plane rather than a straight line is a bunch of zig zags. The sooner the pilot corrects the course though, the less fuel is wasted. If you wait too long to correct, you go a lot off course, and may even end up in the wrong location. So, it is necessary for the pilot to be alert and correct as soon as he can. Well, in this life, it is the same. Besides Jesus Christ, nobody has ever flown that perfect flight, we all go slightly off track at some point. That is where the Sacrament comes in. It gives us a chance frequently to correct our course. In this way, the commandment to keep the Sabbath is less so a burden that forces us to take two hours a week to go to church, and rather becomes a great blessing for us to be able to correct that course! How wonderful it is that we can partake of the Sacrament every single week! And with that view, we don't need to worry as much about enduring to the end. God has provided a way to correct our course to help us complete that journey! We have used this to explain to our investigators about enduring to the end, and it has made a lot more sense to them. And real quick, President Chiles told me a second metaphor. So in this one you have a person wear a heavy backpack, and explain the weight in it is like all our sins we carry with us. At baptism it gets emptied as we receive a remission of all our sins! But of course, we all make mistakes again, and that is like putting some of the removed books or items back in the bag, and adding more weight. But on the Sabbath, we can empty the bag again! Some people worry that if they make a mistake after baptism, they are done for. They can't be forgiven, as they have already promised to obey the commandments. And of course God does not want us to break the commandments, but he knows we aren't perfect and will sometimes make mistakes. So he provides a way that we can empty that bag again. He doesn't want to punish us for our mistakes, he wants us to receive peace through His son, Jesus Christ. If we repent and worthily partake of the Sacrament, it is as if those mistakes are no longer there. That is the peace that comes through the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I know that is true.
I thought those were some pretty cool explanations of what the gospel truly does for us. Well, I promised I would share about zone conference this week, but don't have too much time... But I will share the three biggest take aways. First, we learned that if we want to have success as missionaries, we need to follow the council we have received through God's called servants, and use Preach My Gospel, the resource they put together for us. It really tells you everything you need to know about missionary work. Any missionaries out there not reading and applying Preach My Gospel, I advise looking at it again. There is so much knowledge contained in there. And anyone preparing for missions, Preach My Gospel will be you best friend to prepare for a mission along with the scriptures, and the words of modern prophets and apostles. Second, we learned about how to better recognize and follow the Spirit. And to be bold to testify and invite when the Spirit is there. Our job is not to convert people to us, but the gospel, and that comes through the confirmation of the Spirit. If we can get the investigators to get to a point where they fill the Spirit, it will teach them what they need to know. We need to recognize when the Spirit is there and help the investigator recognize it too so they can recognize their answer from God. And the final one was on teaching progressing investigators, as I titled this email. That was a big eye opener. As a missionary, you may have a lot of people you are teaching. But that doesn't mean a lot of people are progressing. And in order to get baptized and join the church, an investigator must first progress. There is no way around it. Preach My Gospel defines a progressing investigator as someone who has had two or more lessons and is keeping commitments (loose definition from my memory). We were then asked in zone conference to use this definition to see how many progressing investigators we have. It was surprising. You go from having fifteen to twenty investigators overall, to realizing you only have five or six who are progressing. And you realize it is true, those who seem to have real potential to get baptized keep commitments, they desire to learn more, you don't have to force them. And you know what, they are also the ones you would agree would actually want to remain active if they were members. Sometimes we need to realize this distinction so we can know where to put our focus. We are converting people to the gospel of Jesus Christ. These people need to act on their own testimony. If they are still meeting, but really only because they want to please the missionaries, that is nice, but it will not help them come unto Christ. They need to come to know him. I know that is true. We need to help our progressing investigators continue on their personal journey. And those who are not need to find out what they are really working for, or if they are not willing, maybe they should not be occupying so much of our attention. Of course we never want to drop an investigator, we love all those we meet and all those we teach, but we cannot force them on the path back to God, they have their own agency, and we are called to lead those who are ready back to God.
Elder Watson/ Nghiêm
P.S. I will attempt to attach a video here for fun... We had
a superhuman ability trick contest, and let's just say, I won. See for
yourself...
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