Confidence & Action

This week while reading the scriptures I've tried something new. When I find a scripture that speaks out to me, I replace the spiritual "buzzwords" with more every day terms. The most inspiring one came when I replaced the word "faith" in the text with "confidence" or "action". For me, replacing faith with a word that describes faith sparks a new understanding of the word. Faith is the first principle of the gospel. Faith defined is confidence or action in something you believe but cannot see. My week has been governed on that principle.

This week went very similarly to most others. We taught lessons, contacted members and referrals, and went through our studies. As of Saturday morning, we had zero new investigators this week. We typically average 4 new investigators a week. It would have been easy to become discouraged. Onto Saturday morning, where we attended a ward ping-pong tournament. At that ping-pong tournament, a member lets me know of a non-member couple who would love to find a church and are open to listening to the missionaries. (New Investigator #1 and #2) Later, we are going through part-member lists with a Relief Society President and we come across a name of a non-member who has been coming to Church for 3-4 months with his wife. We go by their house and he is completely open to meeting with missionaries. (New Investigator #3) Then, on Sunday afternoon, at about 3:00PM, we're walking into an Elders Quorum meeting. The Ward Mission Leader lets us know we're having dinner at a members' house tomorrow night. We introduce ourselves that member who tells us of their son who is unbaptized but now has a desire to be baptized. (New Investigator #4)

The moral of the story? The Lord promises us many things in life. As a missionary, we're promised success if we're diligent and obedient as missionaries. Even though it always doesn't manifest itself immediately or in such obvious ways, it's always there. It would have been easy to lose motivation and stop working as hard...but as we pressed on, we receive the blessings.

So it is true for each of us. Never slacken our confidence. Keep acting on the knowledge you have. Keep the faith in Christ. As we each do this we will see miracles in our lives.

Elder Bolling