This week, Elder Rencher had a training meeting to go to for all of the District Leaders, so I went with him to the office. While I was there, I got the envelope. The envelope. The departing missionary packet with my travel plans and a few other things. I had been expecting it, but the shock was still pretty... well, shocking.
General Conference was amazing. For me, a lot of the lessons that have taken me two years of being a missionary to learn seemed to crystallize into definite truth as I attended. For me, President Uchtdorf's talk on Sunday morning was the best example of that. I could quote the entire talk easily, but to make point, here's a quote that sums it all up.
"The grace of God does not merely restore us to our previous innocent state. If salvation means only erasing our mistakes and sins, then salvation—as wonderful as it is—does not fulfill the Father’s aspirations for us. His aim is much higher: He wants His sons and daughters to become like Him.
With the gift of God’s grace, the path of discipleship does not lead backward; it leads upward.
It leads to heights we can scarcely comprehend!"
Another one of my favorite parts of the talk summed up what I've learned about obedience.
"Salvation cannot be bought with the currency of obedience; it is purchased by the blood of the Son of God. Thinking that we can trade our good works for salvation is like buying a plane ticket and then supposing we own the airline. Or thinking that after paying rent for our home, we now hold title to the entire planet earth.
If grace is a gift of God, why then is obedience to God’s commandments so important? Why bother with God’s commandments—or repentance, for that matter? Why not just admit we’re sinful and let God save us?
Or, to put the question in Paul’s words, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” Paul’s answer is simple and clear: “God forbid.”
Brothers and sisters, we obey the commandments of God—out of love for Him!
Trying to understand God’s gift of grace with all our heart and mind gives us all the more reasons to love and obey our Heavenly Father with meekness and gratitude. As we walk the path of discipleship, it refines us, it improves us, it helps us to become more like Him, and it leads us back to His presence. “The Spirit of the Lord [our God]” brings about such “a mighty change in us, … that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually."
Hearing this talk was one of those truly transformational moments I've experienced as a missionary.
We had a really good experience earlier in the week. We were out visiting someone that bishop had asked us to visit. We had set up a time to come back and had some time before we were going to go back to the flat to have language study. Elder Rencher suggested that we drop in a see a family that lived nearby, so we went. We don't usually just drop in on people, but it turns out that we were in the right place at the right time. They had a friend over, and they had just started talking about religion when we showed up. We explained a bit about who we were and why we were in Australia, as well as a few of the thing we teach. They had to leave after that, but we were all just amazed at what had happened. The Lord has his hand in this work and orchestrates amazing things.
Love,
Elder Clark
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| Elder Ezra who was at training meeting this week. |
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