Elder Bednar

Howdy Team!

Sorry no card reader.. That just means double journals next week again. Anyways here's a few thoughts from the week:

My companion is awesome. I think I've finally, after how many companions, really learned how to be a companion. And that has been such a blessing to my companionship's the last 8 months or so. We worked SO hard this week. I mean we really gave our 100%. That feels so good.

Our teaching is becoming really powerful. Everything is really coming together.. All of the things I've learned in the last 20 months just make so much sense now, it's like we've been flying above the clouds. Elder Bednar helped a lot there.

About Elder Bednar, he is so great.. He, his wife, Elder Teh and Elder Valdez of the seventy, and Bishop Davies of the Presiding Bishopric and their wives all came to speak to our mission this last Saturday. I don't know that I will ever have such an opportunity again, such a blessing. He is truly a master teacher. He asked that we keep the exact words said there personal.. not because its a secret, but because we might not transmit the message exactly as he meant it. So I will share a few things that I learned this last Saturday. I wrote a few in my journal, too. You'll see that next week. One thing I really liked was his method of studying the Book of Mormon. He invited us, many times, to read from it. And so I have applied that method. I took a brand new, cheap copy of the book (the one we have hundreds of downstairs), and started with a topic. I want to know more about the atonement. As I read, I will highlight or take note of all the aspects of the atonement I see. I'm seven chapters in and learned more about the atonement than I have in a whole month before. 

The whole time he taught there was a prevalent theme of working with our brothers and sisters as AGENTS, and not OBJECTS. When we 'get' an investigator to church, we treat them as objects. When we 'invite' them to witness the ordinance of the sacrament, to feel God's love at His Church, we treat them as agents. Elder Bednar truly taught us as agents last Saturday. We can learn a lot about agency and agents from Lehi's teaching in 2 Nephi 2.

We did our best to apply this right after the meeting when we went to teach the Zamudio family. Sister and the kids have all been baptized this last year, so we are working with Brother now. His face lit up as we taught him the doctrine of baptism, not as an object that we would pour doctrine upon, but as an agent that we lead to discover the truth for himself. I see true potential and know the truth of this teaching method. 

Oh, my dear family, how I love the Lord. The greatest blessing I have felt in this service is a change of heart--my own heart--away from self and to the Savior. Being in His service brings the greatest joy. This applies to me and my brother as missionaries, it applies to my mother and father, it applies to all of us. May we all find this joy and feel the changing power of the atonement in our lives. Love,

Trev

Elder Brown