Monday, February 4, 2013

Choose to be Humble

 Choose to be Humble

We can choose to humble ourselves by conquering enmity toward our brothers and sisters, esteeming them as ourselves, and lifting them as high or higher than we are. (See D&C 38:24; D&C 81:5; D&C 84:106) (President Ezra Taft Benson "Beware of Pride" May 1989)

Dear Family and Friends,                                                                                              February 4, 2013

                Yes, you can choose to be humbled. At the last conference the president asked the missionaries to increase their finding time to three hours a day (Excluding Preparation Day). We committed to eighteen hours for the week. The district meeting that we set the goal on was on a Wednesday. The reporting the goal meeting will be on a Tuesday. To make our goal we had to do some serious finding time daily.  So we have knocked on a lot of doors and talked to a lot of people at bus stations and on the street this week. We spent two hours on finding time today, which is our Preparation Day.

                We had a wonderful opportunity to travel to Hanford for training on Tuesday. We learned many things. At that meeting President Gelwix had the missionaries commit to spend three hours finding each day. Two of the hours were to be spent doing the Harvest Blessing. It is a very effective way to track. We offer to bless homes and families. Of the people that are home about 30 percent accept the offer. That is huge. When this very personalized blessing is finished and the spirit is there we ask if they would like to have this feeling in their home all of the time. Many say yes. We have seen much success with this and have been able to share many referrals with the other missionaries.

                At this training meeting we met missionaries from three zones and one of the new sisters was Sister Blackham. She is from Orem Utah and she was roommates with Jamie Slaughter the daughter of our good friends Jim and Pam Slaughter that lived by us for years. What a small world. We took a picture of her to share.

                In our zone meeting the next day the zone leaders asked us to role play the harvest blessing each day and reemphasized the three hours of tracking or cold contacting. These are two of Elder Sheffer's least favorite things to do but he has committed to do just that. The first day we went to the bus station downtown. Most people we talked to accepted the invitation for a blessing or a pass along card. We shared five referrals with the other missionaries in the zone. Other days we knocked on doors close to where we had just taught a lesson. That brought more referrals and new investigators for us.

                Saturday was very busy because of Stake Conference. The Stake President Zackary Smith asked us to share our testimonies. We then heard that the Stake presidency was being changed and there would be two general authorities there, Elder Bassett and Elder Kopishka of the Seventy. We think the Stake President knew that this would be our only opportunity to speak to the whole stake before our mission is over but many of the people got the idea that we were leaving right away. I feel that way but Elder Sheffer still says we have a lot of time. At the Stake Conference we received three referrals and one of the bishops left us a message that said he had a referral for us also. We are being blessed greatly for being obedient. We feel our Saviors love very abundantly.

Love you all,      Sister and Elder Sheffer

We can choose to humble ourselves by rendering selfless service. (See Mosiah 2:16-17.)

We can choose to humble ourselves by going on missions and preaching the word that can humble others. (See Alma 4:19; Alma 31:5; Alma 48:20.)

(President Ezra Taft Benson "Beware of Pride" May 1989)

 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment