Sep 19

September 19, 2006

This morning we broke up into smaller study groups. Robert was chosen as our group leader. This is an awesome responsibility, as he has to choose who will say the prayers in the group meetings. Sounds simple enough, except they have 10 zillion prayers daily!

We taught our first lesson today. After studying and practicing all day, we came back to our room (everyone else calls them apartments, but ours seems to be missing the basic kitchen required to qualify as an apartment) and at 3:00 a very nice “investigator” (wink, wink) knocked on our door and wanted to be taught the first lesson. Oh, if only that happened in the real world. She was a wonderful, delightful little lady named Sister Dennett who committed to read the Book of Mormon, pray about Joseph Smith and attend church next Sunday. If we’d had another ten minutes I think we could have gotten her to the Temple by October. I just don’t understand why all my slacker children whined about how hard missionary work is. Look what we’ve accomplished in just one day. I’m sure the White Pine Indian Reservation is just filled with Sister Dennetts.

On a more serious note, we attended a truly wonderful devotional tonight. M. Russell Ballard was the speaker. We sat on the third row right in front of the podium. I’d like to say that was because we were there bright and early, but the truth is they save the front section of seats for the senior missionaries. Yeah, I know, we are spoiled here. It was amazing to see that multi-purpose room filled with missionaries. We sang The Lord is My Light as Elder Ballard entered and then Called to Serve as the opening song. Wow!

Elder Ballard shared an experience he had when he was first called as an Apostle. He said one month after being called he went to visit Bolivia and Peru. At that time Lake Titicaca (no idea how to spell that) had flooded and was 12 feet higher than normal. Many of the people were forced from their homes and from the ground they worked. As he stood there he was prompted to bless the land, and he proceeded to command the waters to recede. When he got back to his hotel room he prayed and asked the Lord to bless the land and the people or to forgive him for misunderstanding and being so bold. Two weeks later some members sent him a copy of the newspaper which declared the lake had dropped 12 feet, which would normally have taken several years to happen and that the hydrologists could not explain why this had happened. Then, using the same authority, he pronounced a blessing on all the missionaries present. What excuse could we now possibly give for not doing our very best?

Text message tonight from Veda: Sister and Elder Charlton, hope you had another pleasant day at the MTC. We love you and think of you often. Just wanted to tell you goodnight.