October 15, 2012   Week 10

 

After reading 1 Cor 2:1-5:   So very true! I completely agree with that, and that's what's made me realize that a major part of our purpose and calling is to invite the Spirit into our lessons and into everything we do. We were talking about it this morning in the sense that we need to really be using the Spirit to help us find people. The reason is that if we let the Spirit guide us and lead us to people and people to us, then we're going to find those who are prepared for the message. That way, once we begin really teaching them, they'll be sensitive to the Spirit as we teach. The entire process of missionary work has to be done with the Spirit to guide and direct.
Elder Kimber is from Spanish Fork, Utah. He played lacrosse at BYU and he's been out for about 4 months I believe. He is related to the Kimber Firearms family, but doesn't know that much about it himself. We are currently working with the Lake Washington Spanish ward, which covers a VERY large area. There are about 90 members I think, and yesterday was my first Sunday with them. I may on occasion be playing organ for the ward, but we'll see. Elder Kimber and I are speaking in church next week, I don't know the topic yet, but we should find out today. I want to mention to them, and to you the importance of members working with the missionaries to find and teach people. Definitely don't be afraid to refer ANYBODY to the missionaries that we know. I know I could have done a lot better at that. We can't be afraid of doing missionary work. It doesn't mean that you have to teach them the lessons yourselves, you just need to be aware of their needs and be able to see how the Gospel can help them and refer them to the missionaries. If every member in our branch referred 1 person to us, we literally could not teach that many people. If 90 were referred to us, we'd probably be able to invite 10-20 of them to be baptized, and I imagine many of them would. Our mission currently has the goal of every area having a baptism in the month of December, and we know that it's only going to be possible if we work with members and have some SERIOUS faith. Our goal for the year was 1377 baptisms, and we're not that close, but we believe we can reach the December goal.

This past Friday we had the opportunity to hear from Elder Robert C. Gay of the Seventy. We had our semi-annual mission conference and he was the authority invited to come. He shared, taught, and demonstrated incredible things, all of which I can't possibly hope to explain in their greatest detail. I will try to share some of the mail highlights and things he taught me. One thing he made us realize is that our goal of baptisms is an absolute mountain that we've been asked to move. He said that it could only be done by incredible faith. He was a mission president in Africa, and he took that mission from a low baptismal and activity rate to incredible heights. He instrumented the work that resulted in 9000 baptisms and an 80% activity rate of converts in just 2 years. He gave us some of the many examples in the scriptures of faith and then testified that their mission was an example of a miracle of faith that moved a mountain. There are SO MANY things he taught us. We heard from him 4 different times and he talked for about 6 hours. It was AMAZING. He spoke in General Conference btw... "Would you sell your soul for a nickel?" That was his talk. I don't remember all the rest of it, but it was great. But this mission conference was absolutely amazing. I played the piano and that was cool too. I got a TON of compliments. I know that despite the more limited amount of time that I have to play, the Lord has blessed me and maintained my abilities so that I can use them to build the kingdom. It's a wonderful blessing that I'm really thankful for, and I really appreciate the time that I get to play.

Last week was great! We had the opportunity to teach a number of lessons and help investigators make and keep commitments. Church attendance is a huge deal for those who are learning the gospel because it helps them build relationships with members and be able to partake of the sacrament and learn in the Spirit. Because of this, we made a particular effort to get investigators and less active members to church this week. We are hoping and praying for the formation of a Spanish branch. That will bring things a little closer and help the unity in the area. We currently have to drive about 30 minutes down to Kirkland for church and that always makes it harder for members to attend up here... So we'll see what happens there.

We drive a Toyota Corolla and it needs new windshield wipers. They go through them much more rapidly here as you can imagine. The rain has started and doesn't seem to want to stop very much, though at this very moment there is a little bit of sunshine. This area is super beautiful. There's these deep green, dark forest thickets just everywhere, and the rain is actually pretty cool. There's not a huge amount of wildlife, because we are indeed in the suburbs. Yesterday Elder Kimber and I were headed to a member dinner and we saw a bald eagle fighting two falcons over the highway, and it was actually pretty insane. But that's about the only wildlife that we're seen other than the occasional raccoon. Elder Kimber has a huge problem with walking into spider webs for some reason, so his nature sightings are a little more of a contact sport I guess.

Oh yes!!! I have an awesome experience to share! So Elder Kimber and I were out tracting last Wednesday in the evening. We had about 6 different people or families we wanted to visit and went and tried all of them. Absolutely NONE were home. So we walked between several different apartments and tried making some contacts on the street. We still had about an hour before we'd be going home, and we were headed back to the car to figure out what we were going to do for that time. As we were walking down the street on that cloudy, dark night, semi discouraged that we couldn't have found at least one person, something happened. We waved to the driver of a silver Dodge Charger coming our direction, as we do with all people we see. Unexpectedly, the drive slammed on his braked and pulled off the side of the road and honked his horn. We turned around and I got pretty excited to think we might be able to talk to someone. We were the only ones out there. Just us, and this car. My heart sunk when a 5'10" black man, huge, who looked like a boxer, wearing a ski jacket, stepped out of the car and said, "hey, you'd Mormons... right!?" I got a little skittish, and tried to figure out how I'd be handling myself when he revealed whatever it was he had in his pocketed hands, if nothing more than bludgeoning fists.

 
But the Spirit constrained, and things calmed down as he carefully said, "you guys alright? you ok? I know it's late, I just want to talk to ya." He was SO EXCITED!! We spoke of the Restoration, of Christ's church, and the gospel available to all. His name was Rio. A man looking for truth. And in answer to his prayers, and our prayers and fasts, all was answered. I loved that experience. Thought I'd share :)

Everything is absolutely great here!

Love

Elder Talbot