I was also blessed to come in right before the baptism of Joshua, a youth who will make a great example, and one day a great missionary! Elder Mariscal earned the right to baptize him due to the fact that he is finishing his mission and will be leaving today. He will leave and Elder NIelsen will officially take over his spot as the new assistant. It has been pretty interesting being around so many great missionaries with so much knowledge and experience, every now and again we enter into spontaneous studies and start throwing out scriptures left and right.
On Thursday we had our conference with Elder Bednar, and it was incredible! It was very relaxed and he threw jokes in left and right. He had a lot of interesting things to say. To start off he told us that he would play guess whats in my head. He explained how many times in the church we get into this habit of teaching a class and start asking very, very basic questions to get someone to participate. For example, what are the three parts to the baptismal covenant? He promised us that we will never have the spirit when we follow this pattern. Instead we should ask questions to learn what someone else is learning, and never to get a specific answer from someone. He taught how people are agents to act and not objects to be acted upon. He explained how Elder Perry had a transfer, and then needed a companion, and who better than the man who sat by his side for decades--President Packer. At the end, he allowed some time for questions, that was interesting. One elder asked how he could be bold in his words when giving a priesthood blessing and yet follow the will of the Lord at the same time. Elder Bednar asked how direct of an answer the missionary wanted and then explained that our words may not matter as much as we think they do. He told us to read, "Healing the Sick" by Elder Oaks from Conference in April of 2010. It really explains a lot there. He also challenged us to get a cheap copy of the Book of Mormon and read it cover to cover marking the exercised power of the atonement. He really emphasized how sometime we teach the steps to repentance, and it should not be that way. In the Church we teach eternal principals clear enough that a child can understand and apply them. He also told us how he hates hearing the stories of how people magically have enough money at the end of the month when they give their tithing. We don't honor the commandment to receive money, or a reward. We simply give back to the Lord what is His. He naturally blesses us for our obedience. He also had Sister Bednar answer a question about being pure in heart. He said it was because she was the best example of it. He said, you look in her face and see purity. She started to answer and said that sometimes she doesn't always feel completely pure, and then he interrupted by said, that's because you're a woman.
It proved to be the best three hour conference that I have ever sat in! I just want to end with this last part. Elder Bednar told us that when people pray in church and ask God to bless those who are not present, and then to help them come next week, it is a complete lack of faith. Faith is action. He gave us an example prayer and in it said something like:
"God, thank you for this meeting, and please bless those who are not here now, we will not ask for you to magically bring them here next week, instead we will go and and get them, right now. Father, if the bishop has other ideas, we are willing to hear them. Well, seeing as the bishop hasn't gotten up yet to say no to me, we are going right now. we have faith that we can go get them, and so we are going, right now. The only thing we ask for is inspiration that we don't all end up at the same house. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."
It was a very powerful example. To pray that people magically come to church is against whatever faith that we might have. We live by actions, and work miracles by the same means.
Well, sorry this email is a little long. A lot happened this week, but it has been one of the best weeks of my mission. I am now with Elder Sitton, who has been training me to take over the finances. He is one sweet guy, he taught me how to pay the missionaries every month--turns out it is only a 6 hour process. Shout-out to Dad, I have no idea how you can manage payroll of a company, to me that is a miracle. Anyways, I hope you have a great week, oh, and as you can tell my pday is now Saturday, not Monday. But you can still email whenever, I am allowed access almost 24/7 to my email due to my new responsibilities. I love you all and challenge you all to live by faith, and show it!
Elder Bradford
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