So I decided to pull a fast one and tell our investigator Dennis that if he's trying to quit smoking, we'll quit eating sugar so we can sympathize with him a little bit. Hands down, worst decision I've made on my mission so far. The free box full of Andy's frozen custard in our freezer is the biggest temptation of my life. But.. We found out yesterday that it was national ice cream day so we had to cave, right? Hopefully it's national custard day soon because I'm looking for as many excuses as I can get, lol I'm the worst.
We had a major miracle the other day. We felt prompted to go tracting one morning on a specific street we had never been on before. We got out of the car and started walking down the sidewalk. We saw 2 women sitting on their doorstep so we went up and started talking to them. They both said that they wanted to learn more about Jesus Christ so we taught them the Restoration and left them with a Book of Mormon and a return appointment. We asked them if they knew of anyone else who could benefit from our message and one of them told us to walk inside the house and talk to her daughter. So we were able to teach her daughter as well and get to know her kids and talk to them a little bit too. We are so excited to get to know this family more and teach them. It was a total kick start to our day and it was so good to see the blessings we get from following spiritual promptings. The Lord truly leads us to where we need to go.
We had the New Missionary Training Orientation Meeting on Friday. I basically just learned that I'm probably the worst trainer and got the confirmation that I literally don't know what I'm doing. So.. Trainer of the Year Award? It was super good though and as always, President Bateman knew exactly what to say to all of us. Something that he has been talking a lot about is how being obedient and worthy makes us holy. There is more individuality to those who are holy. Sin and disobedience brings similarity and sameness.
SPIRITUAL THOUGHT- yesterday I studied a lot about vessels. I've been trying to find ways to become a better vessel of the spirit. A vessel is a carrier and as missionaries & members, we literally carry, or hold within us, the companionship of the Holy Ghost. In Ether 2:23, the Lord says to the brother of Jared, "What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels?" And later in the scriptures we find the answer, "Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord." Being obedient and becoming holy allows us to be clean and qualifies us to bear the vessel. In Alma 60:23 we read, "Now I would that ye should remember that God has said that the inward vessel shall be cleansed first, and then shall the outer vessel be cleansed also." We clean our inner vessel as we continue to be converted unto God. A missionary's entire focus is to invite people to come unto Christ. I can bring the message UNTO the hearts, but I can't bring it INTO the hearts. Our investigators bring the message into their hearts as they act on the invitation we leave with them. For us, we do the same thing. We bring the message into our hearts as we continually convert ourselves more and act on the invitation from our church leaders, our prophet, and our Heavenly Father. We bear the vessel of the Spirit as we act and as we become holy.