18 February 2017
It’s been a full and busy week. We had a fairly large group
(20+) full-time missionaries finish training yesterday, but, sadly, none of
them were assigned to our zone. We’ve learned that one unexpected outcome of
being under the Missionary Department, now is that they have so many needs
throughout the world, they are not inclined to send people to Church
Headquarters in Salt Lake City. (If people really want to serve in this
mission, they can contact our mission office, and, with the assistance of the
mission president, have a pretty good chance of being assigned here. But, it’s
not like it used to be.) We’re praying that more local residents will want to
serve as church-service missionaries, because we need them.
At our monthly Mission Conference this week, we got to hear from
Sister Wendy Nelson (President Russell M. Nelson’s wife.) She is a wonderful
speaker! She told an interesting story about when she was 24 years old and
engaged to be married, but, was wondering a bit about the relationship. She had
heard the promise that you can receive personal answers from the messages at
General Conference, so she decided to give this a try. This was back when you
only got the audio feed for conference (not like it is now), and she had a
small tape recorder she used to record the messages so she could play them back
later. She said it was the most amazing thing! In one session she listened to,
every single talk was about marriage, and the message she heard with each talk
was, “Do not marry this man.” So, after conference, she ended the relationship.
Then, a few months later, she was asked to give a RS lesson about marriage. She
went back to listen to all the talks at that Gen. Conference session, and
discovered that not a single one of them was on marriage!! She pointed out that
when we are prepared to hear, the Holy Ghost will speak to us – regardless of
what a speaker may actually be saying.
She also talked about some experiences she’s had with doing her
own family history research, and I found it interesting because I’ve had some
of those same impressions and experiences. Especially, with being wakened
around 2 or 3 a.m., going to the computer, and finding a whole family that I
didn’t have records for before! That’s happened several times in recent months!
Yet, somehow I’m able to function the next day. . . and, it’s truly exciting to
find these missing family members!
We feel blessed to be serving where we are, and especially, to
be close enough to walk to the temple! (And, within an easy drive of several
other temples.) It’s wonderful.
1 comment:
Loved the story Sister Nelson told about her experience with prayers answered while listening to conference. I haven't had anything as dramatic, but have had many questions answered through conference talks. Hope you have some local people come help!
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