Learning To Be a Powerful Missionary

With Elder McKee, one of Elder Shirley's zone leaders

Elder Newman, Elder Isaacson (one of the Bulgarian Elders), and Elder Shirley

Elder Shirley and two of the Turkish Elders: Elder Brady and Elder Blair

Elder Muir, Elder Shirley and Elder Hall-Brown

Elder Bednar and Elder Shirley. His great uncle is the actual Elder Bednar

Trying on some Krispy Kreme hats from the donuts that Elder Shirley's mom had delivered

Elder Shirley's district in Krispy Kreme hats

August 6, 2015

Ahoj everyone!

This week was an especially good one! Here is why:

For Tuesday night general authority devotional, we got to hear from an apostle of the Lord. The devotional was given by President Russell M. Nelson. From what I heard, this is his first time speaking after being called as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. So even though I've been at the MTC a long time, I am blessed to hear messages from apostles. As a group of over 2,000 missionaries gathered while waiting for President Nelson to come into the room, all of the sudden, everyone in the room went silent. I think we all felt that President Nelson had arrived and we felt the Spirit that he carried. It was a cool experience. His talk was focused mainly on the eternal perspective and how important the temple is in our lives and in the lives of our investigators. He also gave us three eternal goals which are: Help gather scattered Israel, Families of Israel shall be sealed in temples of the Lord, and Prepare the world for the second coming. He also said something that I really liked. It was "Have the doctrine of Christ engraved in our hearts." I know that as we do that, we can become great missionaries and great disciples of Jesus Christ.

Our Sunday night devotional was given by Sheri Dew. She had a really good message to share also. Hers was on receiving answers to our prayers and how to understand the Spirit. I liked that she said we must be willing to spiritually "wrestle" in our prayers and having meaningful prayers to feel the Holy Ghost and receive revelation.

One other cool thing that happened this past week was that we got the opportunity to teach some members of the church from the Czech Republic over Skype. We prepared a lesson and got to skype them and teach it to them. It was a good experience to hear what native Czech people sound like and it was awesome to actually understand some of what they are saying and be able to teach in a different language and have them understand. The language is still moving along. Some of the grammar principles are different and hard to get used to, but the knowledge will come with time and with faith.

This week, about half of my zone left to go to the field. The ones that left were the Turkish Elders, the Bulgarians, and the Slovenes. It was hard to see them go because I have gotten close to them in the 6 weeks that I have been here. And it is also weird now being the most experienced Elders in the zone and knowing that I'll be the next group of people that leaves.

That is it for this week! I'll leave you with a thought from one of my awesome teachers. He said, "Don't just be a good missionary, or a fun missionary, but be a powerful missionary because that is what the mission requires." And I know the same applies to all members in the gospel. We can't just be good or great. We need to be powerful because that is what the world requires of us. 

Love and miss you all! 

-Starší Shirley