All
of the flowers that FM planted a few weeks ago are filling in and looking so
gorgeous. We appreciate all of their
work to make Nauvoo such a beautiful place.
"Mission Time" is so odd. It seems that the days move slowly but the weeks just fly by. Here it is almost the end of June. Before I know it we'll be on to a new month. This week Scott was able to rotate serving in the Browning Gun Shop, the Blacksmith Shop, the Family Living Center and Pioneer Pastimes. He loves the variety and the opportunity to share his love of Nauvoo with the visitors. And we have had plenty of visitors. This week we had two large groups of youth, one from Midland, Michigan and the other from Fort Collins, Colorado. They sure kept us all busy!
Serving as a missionary always provides so many opportunities for learning and plenty of growth. I am surrounded by such insightful people who express themselves very eloquently. Such was the case today...
In sacrament meeting Elder Merrill, one of the YPM elders, spoke about “authenticity
of heart”. He spoke about it in relation
to singing hymns, praying and partaking of the sacrament. There are levels of engagement we all have as
we do these things; just reciting the words, thinking about the words, feeling
the words and making them our own, and then having the Holy Spirit confirm the truthfulness
of the words and feelings to our hearts. He quoted Bruce R. McConkie in his
last General Conference address when he said, “In
speaking of these wondrous things I shall use my own words, though you may
think they are the words of scripture, words spoken by other Apostles and
prophets. True it is they were first proclaimed by others, but they are now
mine, for the Holy Spirit of God has borne witness to me that they are true,
and it is now as though the Lord had revealed them to me in the first instance.
I have thereby heard his voice and know his word.” I remember hearing Elder
McConkie speak those words and they were powerful.
This
topic of being fully engaged in the gospel, though I wasn’t so eloquent as to call it “authenticity of heart”, has
been on my mind lately. It’s easy for me
to just “say” my prayers and move on to the next part of my day. It’s easy for me to take the bread and water
as a part of the sacrament and then think of other things besides the Savior
during the sacrament. It’s easy for me to
read the Book of Mormon each morning and then not give it another thought
throughout the day. Is any of that really going to get me where I'd like to be? Is it going
to increase my ability to receive personal revelation? My guess is no. It won’t unless I make those activities a part of me, a
part of my heart and I begin to really love the things that God loves. When I
begin to do that I begin to have a change of heart. It's a work in progress and it takes focus.
 |
| Another Mississippi River sunset. |
 |
| Our visitors in the Blacksmith shop last week. |
 |
| They're cute little guys, but wreck havoc wherever they go! |
 |
| The days have been quite cool, even though the humidity has been high. |
No comments:
Post a Comment