August 24, 2011

I had a restless night of sleep last night. I had a sore throat and I am afraid I’m coming down with a cold. I did get up at regular time and finished reading the Book of Mormon in my scripture study. It has been a special time going through the Book of Mormon while preparing for and beginning my service on this mission. I love the classic promise of Moroni 10:3-5. I also love the discussion of spiritual gifts as outlined in Moroni 10:9-18. Remember that every good gift comes from God. Even with these beautiful and powerful scriptures, I think my favorite exhortation from Moroni is in Moroni 10:32-33:

32 Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.
33 And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot.

It is so important to realize that we are expected to do all we can do. We need to deny ourselves of all ungodliness. We need to love God with all our heart, might, mind, and strength. Moroni says “then…” meaning only after we have done these things, “ is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ”. That is, the atonement is effective for us only after we have done all we can do. Then we are sanctified in Christ. What a great and critical promise.

We ended up with 27 missionaries here for our leadership training. Like in New Caledonia, I taught about “Riding Time” and trained them on the Church-wide New Missionary Training Program. We had missionary leaders teach of the importance of the Holy Ghost in Conversion, Revelation through Prayer, and Revelation through Church Attendance. I was very impressed by the broad range of scriptures shared by the teachers and the students on each topic.

Jan taught them a number of concepts from the scriptures, the white handbook, and Preach My Gospel. She pressed them to be more faithful in writing each week to the mission president. She coached them on appropriate clothing for missionaries. Each time she speaks to the missionaries, the Spirit is very strong. I hope they can appreciate the power and positive influence she can and should be in their lives. I then finished with teaching them of the importance of working with Church Leaders. Jan had cooked another outstanding lunch and all the missionaries loved the sloppy joes, potato salad, and apple pie with ice cream. We got a couple of pictures to commemorate the event and we were finished by around 4pm.

I went over to the office and worked through some e-mails and we went back home around 7pm for a “left-overs” dinner. I was really worn out due to whatever I am coming down with so we rested on the couch and talked for about an hour concerning issues with the missionaries and ideas on future training. I plan turning in a little bit early tonight in order to try to nip this cold in the “bud”.