Thursday, July 1, 2010

Living Water-The Atonement of Jesus Christ in our lives


 Elder Binks & Elder Christensen @ Elder Christensen's report to the Ward after returning home from his mission. Great missionaries!!!
 
Wow how blessed we are! I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude to our Father in Heaven for this opportunity and responsibility to serve him and his children our brothers and sisters. This time serving has been and still is that thing to which has brought me the greatest happiness that I have yet experienced in my life. Preach My Gospel does not lie but gives us that truth found within the First Presidency Message. Over the past few days and weeks I have been deeply reflecting on all that has happened to me over here. As I do so,  a few things come to my mind and heart. 1st I feel a great sense of love for these people, each and every one of them. They are truly amazing, members are such a joy to know and be associated with, also recent converts and all the less-active members are those to whom I have a great sense of love for. There are some exciting things going on at this moment in time. We just finished our series of ZoKos, 1st  we were in Crawley 2nd  in Poole and the last one was yesterday in Reading. These were amazing and lots of spiritual in-sights and a great abundance of the spirit of the Lord was poured out upon all those present. President Shamo taught us the Law of Moses and took us to the Law of Christ, each of his amazing counselors taught us. President Martin taught about spirituality and the impact we as missionaries can have, President Jones taught us about teaching and unfolding the principles and doctrines of the gospel in such a way as to allow the scriptures to do the teaching and getting those we teach to make a personal application. It was an amazing time being instructed by these great men, that are truly spiritual giants. I learned to much to share but simply put as president Shamo taught us from 2 Corinthians 3:2-3  Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us,  written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in  tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.

He taught us how this is what must happen to us as missionaries and really for anyone who is to truly be a disciple of Jesus Christ. It must be in us written on our heart, we must have that broken heart so the Lord can write upon it with the experiences that he provides for us. The spirit will come into our lives if we but invite in by the way we live, we must live clean, live with kindness and not be so busy that we miss the spiritual experiences to which the Lord is providing.  When this takes place, what we do will speak so loud that people will not be able to hear what we say. We must truly show our faith by our works and also by what we say. These must go hand in hand as the Savior of the world taught us.

This last Sunday Elder Bång and myself went to the Epsom ward, our new ward where we will soon be working. We have come up with a vision of things and the way in which the Assistants will be used and how things will work, we hope it will have an impact upon the work as we will be able to have our own proselyting area for part time. This ward is amazing; they were so kind and welcoming to us. We were so excited to do more leading by what we do rather than what we say. I am so excited for all the things that are working out as we move forward with the spirit of the lord leading us in this his great work. This week and next week were going on exchanges with all the Zone Leaders. It is going to be amazing working with all of them also as there are so many new ones this moves.

I want you all to know how much I love you. I love you for who you are and what you have done and continue to do for me and all others. You, my family mean the world to me. I am sorry for not being perfect just yet... sorry for missing e-mails and anything else I may have neglected as I result of being in too big of a hurry. (Read Don't be in a Hurry” in the June Ensign) it hit me in the heart and helped me to realize some changes I need to keep making. “

Thank you for everything, thank you for making me feel loved and important in your lives. Thank you for the sacrifices that you have all made so that I may be out here serving the Lord. Thank you for just being you. Keep on this path.  Let us all keep pressing forward, looking towards Jesus Christ and following all the things that he did and said. 

PS: Read John 3&4 . Elder Bång and I taught about water, discussed this with the missionaries and what is the living water? We then asked them this question at the end...How are YOU going to lead THEM to the Living Water? Let us all ponder this and seek the guidance of God to know how to lead others to the Atonement of Jesus Christ that one event that will make all things right!

Quick question...Is there anything you would like me to bring back home? Anything you would like me to get for any of you? Just let me know!! :)

Yes Elder Christensen and Elder Binks are amazing!!! Send them my love and best wishes!

Much love from
Elder Allred 

No comments: