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Week 41...The SPIRIT HAS A VOICE!

August 14, 2016


This week was a week of exchanges with Elder Duckworth and it was amazing! Elder Duckworth is assigned to speak Malay so I got plenty of practice and still didn't get anywhere... This week has honestly been such a good week and I am so grateful for the Lord Jesus Christ. He really does make all things possible. A couple days ago, as we were riding home, we had just dropped one of the members back off at her home after she had helped us teach a lesson. As we were riding back to our house, the thought came to me that the principles of righteousness are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven. It really struck me that even little acts of minor disobedience would still apply to that statement and that our spiritual sensitivity would be weakened. I realized that as I am called upon to give blessings and comfort and advice to others that I meet, I would need to be living my life in such a way that would help me be able to recognize the promptings of the spirit. I know that as we live our life the greatest we can, the Savior will always make up the difference.

 The SPIRIT HAS A VOICE! Elder Duckworth and I were riding down the street and we weren't in too much of a rush when all of the sudden I hear someone call out, ELDER! I looked to my left trying to see someone but no one was there. I thought for a minute that maybe I was just hearing things because Elder Duckworth continued to bike forward, but then I noticed him turning his head the same way I did and I knew that he had heard it too. I yelled ahead and asked if he heard that voice and he said, yeah. So we turned the corner and went into this shop lot area and there was a man sitting down with his phone. We knew that it couldn't have been him that called us but we sat down with him and talked with him a bit. As we talked with him, he really opened up and was open to meeting with us again. We have an appointment set with him this week and we hope to be able to help him get his life in order and to help him improve his family life.

This week I will have the chance to get back with Elder Schwemmer and do a little more Chinese work. One of the things that we want to focus on is always meeting with someone and not just making it a, "whats the back up plan? We can go contacting..." We really want to build up our branch members and help them continue to build their testimony of the Gospel. We know that as we do so, be able to meet with their family and friends will help with others to teach and automatically having a support system to fall back on.

I was reading this morning in the Book of Mormon and I love those moments when all of the sudden the Gospel suddenly makes sense and you wonder why you didn't understand it before...

Jacob 4: 12-14

12 "And now, beloved, marvel not that I tell you these things; for why not speak of the atonement of Christ, and attain to a perfect knowledge of him, as to attain to the knowledge of a resurrection and the world to come?

13 Behold, my brethren, he that prophesieth, let him prophesy to the understanding of men; for the Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls. But behold, we are not witnesses alone in these things; for God also spake them unto prophets of old.

14 But behold, the Jews were a stiffnecked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble."

Are we looking beyond the mark? I have to constantly remind myself that the Gospel begins with faith in Christ unto repentance. Sometimes we can be engaged in learning about the theory of Kolob or trying to understand the facsimile's in the book of Abraham. Although it would be cool to understand all of that, our foundation must be built on Faith in Christ. As we do so, everything else will begin to fall into place. I love the Gospel and how simple but powerful and plain it is. I know that it is true and I am so grateful for a testimony of it. I share these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Love, Elder Shirley






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