Dear Family and Friends!
First of all I wanted to express my love to Mom, Dad, Courtney, Clarissa, and Isabel for being such great supports and examples to me. One night this week I was praying and had a prompting to pray for each one of you and specific reasons why I love each one of you flooded my mind. I'm so grateful for you Mom and Dad for making our home a sacred place, and living exemplary lives of Gospel service. You never realize how much your parents did for you and your siblings until you're on your own, especially on your mission.
This week was pretty good, a little less time to proselyte with meetings and stuff but we still got some good work done. We found a few decently solid potentials that will hopefully pan out for us this next week. This week we had a miracle while walking down the street to try a potential investigator: We were still about a block away and we see this young adult get out of his car and start walking towards his house, we were just walking down the sidewalk. We called out to him and he came up to us to hear what we had to say. We asked him this question: "If you could have God help you with something right now, what would you want help with?" He answered by saying he wanted a greater purpose in life. He said he was sick of just working and sleeping! He's 22, very ready to receive the Gospel, super open too. Looking forward to teaching him in a couple days. An insight from my studies - the word instrument is used quite a few times in the Book of Mormon and I studied a few places where it uses it. Once Lehi is describing his son Nephi, a couple times about Alma the Elder, one about Gideon, and a few times about Ammon and the Sons of Mosiah. I concluded that Nephi was an able instrument in the hands of God because he relied on God instead of his own knowledge and abilities, he trusted God and His ability to help him, and he knew the right questions to ask in prayer. (Example: "Give me the strength to get out of these binding cords that my brothers tied me up in." vs. "get me out of here!" -OR- "Show me where I can find the ore to make tools so I can build this ship." vs. "Give me the tools!")
Sometimes I think we pray for things to happen but we just ask the wrong questions! We might pray "Please give us somebody to share the Gospel with!" or you could ask, "Who in my life is ready to receive the Gospel?" or "Please help my know by The Holy Ghost who to talk with about the Gospel today, because I know that Thou wilt place people in my path." Then if we pay attention to the promptings we receive throughout the day, we will hear them! Sometimes Heavenly Father will give us answers right away, other times He will wait until the time is right, which may not be the time we expect it! We just need to be ready to listen and heed the answers when they come.
When we narrow our minds to think that after praying, the outcome will only happen one certain way, we damper our ability to recognize and conform to the answer that God will give! Most often times I think the answer does NOT come the way that we think it will, or in the time we anticipate. If I go into a lesson with my own agenda, and am not willing to change my plan if God wants me too then I am acting as a hindrance rather than an instrument in His hands. It's like with Alma when he was commanded to go back to Ammonihah after he was kicked out of the city once already. He said something to the effect of "I was about to turn my back on this people forever." But The Lord commanded him to return and enter in another way and he was quick to obey! May we press forward with humble hearts, seeking the will of The Lord, and be an instrument in His hands instead of a hindrance. Love you all!
Elder Goff
 |
Click here to Reply, Reply to all, or Forward
|
No comments:
Post a Comment