Wednesday 30 March 2016

Stay On Course

Hey everyone!

So this past week has been AWESOME. (See last week's email.) There were so many great things happening all week - we had some great lessons, mission leadership council, the stake Easter cantata, a new investigator came to the women's broadcast, I gave a talk in sacrament meeting (which I actually love doing), pretty much ALL the less-actives we work with came to church, a complete stranger walked into church and turns out to live in our area and gave us his contact information, we went on our first exchange of the transfer, and we had a wonderful Easter dinner with two of the senior missionary couples. So basically, it was amazing.

This coming week should be pretty exciting too. We and the zone leaders have decided to start visiting the other districts in our zone to see how it's going and what we can do to help. This week we get to visit Kirkland!!! I'm excited to visit my old area. :) Although the majority of the missionaries who are there now were not there when I was there, so it won't exactly be the same. Still though, it should be fun!

The talk I gave on Sunday was about how the sacrament influences my life each week. I decided that with only 5ish months left on my mission, it was about time I use a swimming analogy to preach the gospel. I remember one time when I was a lot younger that I was taking swimming lessons and my instructor asked me to take my goggles off and swim to the other end without opening my eyes underwater. I did, but it wasn't long before I felt myself hitting the lane rope on my right. So I corrected my course and continued. But only a few seconds later, I hit the lane rope on my left. I ended up zig-zagging all the way down the lane! 
I told that story, and compared the black line on the bottom of the pool to Jesus Christ, and the lane ropes to the sacrament. When we always remember Him, it's easy to stay on track. But when we forget, or get distracted, we start to veer off course. So we need a regular, consistent, effective reminder to catch us before we stray too far. When you take the lane ropes out of a swimming pool, people crash, they get hurt, and in extreme cases, they could even get a concussion from a head-on collision, pass out, and drown. When you take the sacrament out of your life, you risk potentially fatal spiritual damage. Not only does the sacrament protect us spiritually, it gives us access to Christ's Atonement, which does FAR more than simply take away our sins. It helps us grow into a strong person who resists sin and has the spiritual stature to dwell in the presence of God. Anyway, I enjoyed giving the talk. Moral of the story: GO TO CHURCH. 

I love you all! Happy General Conference! :)

Sister Shaver


No comments:

Post a Comment