That's cool that Newel is serving in the Philippines too. I feel like everyone and their mother is going to Tagalog speaking missions though. I can understand Tagalog pretty well. I used to be able to speak it alright too but I haven't spoken it now for at least 6 months so I think I've lost it. I've forgotten when to double my syllables and when to use the other conjugations. Tagalog is ridiculous. It takes 15 minutes to say anything. It's kinda like entish... only more fruity sounding. Ouch haha that's so offensive. I guess I've got a little bisaya pride in me. I want to practice it more when I go home though since that is the national language. If you speak that you can communicate with literally anyone in the entire country because it's taught in schools and all the TV is in Tagalog here.
So a couple cool successes of the past week: We baptized Mimi Ann and her Mom on Saturday, got more super awesome revelation for how to help these leaders, we saw a super cool rainbow sunset, and I got pooped on by a bat! Very exciting.
The baptism went really well, and both Mimi and Nanay are super solid and ready for callings and whatever else the Lord wants for them. Mimi is going to school in a week or so in the city so she'll be going to church in the Arlington ward, but after that she has already decided to serve a mission which is going to be really good for her. Nanay is great and will be a big help to our branch here.
Not too much to explain about the bat poop... Pretty self explanatory. It was full of seeds...
The revelation we got this week was amazing though! I'll start explaining it by citing your minds back to the previous week. I spent 5 days planning a really awesome workshop for my district meeting on Monday, and started to get really strong impressions about what to prepare and teach about. I planning a workshop on our existence in the premortal life and how our agency and diligence allowed us to win the war in heaven. I based a lot of it off Revelations 12:7-11 because that is what the Spirit told me to do. I was feeling super good about it Monday morning and we went to the church to have our district meeting. When I stood up after the opening exercises however, I was prompted to basically toss my workshop out the window, which I did, and we went a completely different way. We had a great discussion about how despite much success, there have also been many leaders who, after being trained, just refuse to do their duties. They'll come to church but are not converted beyond those 3 hours each week. I had no idea where any of this was going, and I didn't have answers to a lot of the elders questions but we continued with our discussion nonetheless as it was directed by the Spirit. Then after a good hour or so of discussion, it hit us. These leaders were throwing up walls when we tried to tell them how to magnify their callings. We weren't telling them how to do their callings, but even so, the idea of us trying to train them on the programs of the church and their duties was rejected. Their brains were recognizing foreign ideas, and rejecting them. What we needed to do was to go deep enough in their minds through the Spirit so as to plant a foreign idea of what they should be doing without them realizing that it wasn't their idea. If we went down enough levels through inspired questions about problems they were seeing in the branch and ways they could make a difference, the Spirit would be able to help us plant an idea that would be accessed later by that leader and accepted as their own original inspiration. Does this sound familiar? We call it... Inception! If we can get these leaders to think it is them coming up with all these great ideas of how to help, they'll be so much more willing to do it. They'll see how they really can make a difference and it's not just the Elders using them to do what they want. We have implemented this and have been seeing amazing success. Each night we become the "architects" as we plan for commitments and questions to maneuver deep enough into the minds of our leaders. As we guide the discussion through the Spirit the next day and share scriptures as prompted, leaders have begun telling us exactly what we planned for them to think of. The Holy Ghost is the perfect partner for these kind of "insertions''. This has been a really fun way to teach and the success is truly amazing. Previously difficult or prideful leaders are beginning to think of great ideas and implement them as their own. Haha this is such a cool spin on teaching through the Spirit. I'm loving it!
So anyway, that was the revelation of our district meeting and our success with that. Because I didn't get to teach what I prepared though, I thought that I would just save my workshop for the next week and teach it at the next district meeting. Tuesday however was Zone interviews where President Schmutz came and taught a workshop. The exact same workshop that the Spirit had so strongly prompted me to prepare. He as well taught on the premortal life and how our agency and diligence allowed us to win the war in heaven. He, too, based his workshop off of Revelations 12:7-11. It was a great workshop! Looks like I'm not going to be able to take the easy way out for my last district meeting next week after all. Again, I testify that all true revelation comes from the same place.
I've got one more time to email you all next week before going home, so make sure you send me some good emails so I can get you some good replies. I love you all!
Love,
Elder Garver
No comments:
Post a Comment