Teachings of an Apostle

We had a very eventful week. Tuesday through Friday was hectic: Getting calls every day various times throughout the day to deal with members, missionaries, and the mission President, trying to adjust schedules to find time to do divisions with the companionships in the zone who need our help most, taking care of baptismal interviews, planning a zone activity, scheduling and planning for interviews with President tomorrow and for the zone conference next week, and organizing where everyone was going to stay the night Friday so we could all get to the temple stake center before 7:30 Saturday morning are just some of the things we were dealing with. 

On top of it all on Thursday I got very sick. I had a fever, a really bad throat infection and cough, nose and ear pain, headaches, you know all the good stuff. Went to the doctor and got several injections and medicines to take for a few days and Sister Maucotel had me rest on Friday. My only worry that I had was being well enough to go to the conference with Elder Bednar. After a blessing from my companion, many meds, and bed rest for a day, however, I woke up Saturday feeling much better and was able to attend without problems. Friday, the Elders in Sabinas Hidalgo came and stayed the night with us so we could get there on time. 

We all arrived at the stake center around 7:20 more or less. We had time to study and then at 8:00 we all went outside and we got organized to take a picture with Elder Bednar, his wife, and Elder Pino of the 70 and his wife. After the picture we were all shuffled back into the chappel. We had the entire mission there but we only just barely filled all the benches. We were all so close to Elder Bednar. We listened to Elder Pino, his wife, and Sister Bednar give some small opening remarks, not even really talks. And then Elder Bednar got up and told us all that he wasn't going to be giving a talk. The entire 3 hours with him was a way of teaching and learning that I hhave never experienced before. One of the first things he said was that we are agents and not objects and that in the culture of the church we play a really dumb game called "Guess what's in my head" whenever we are teaching. When you call on someone to answer a question in a setting like a class room you are turning that person into an object and usually that person has fear to stand up and say something and almost never feels the spirit. But if you ask the group of people to share what they learned about a particular subject or their feelings, they are more willing to raise their hand say something. This is exactly what Elder Bednar did. He formulated several questions like "What did you learn from the 4 talks you read this week?" or "What have you noticed right now as we have used this new pattern of learning?"  and then at the end we were allowed time to ask him questions. 

Usually after someone answered a question he would then ask a a follow up question and talk with that Elder or sister for a few minutes to let them get the most out of their little minny 1 on 1 learning session with an apostle. I raised my hand to answer the second questiuon that he asked without even thinking. I remember looking at my hand in the air and thinking "Is that really my hand? What are you doing? You don't even know what you are going to say! " And then I saw Elder Bednar look at me and say "You Elder, please stand" Before I could back out of it I was handed a microphone from one of the helpers and I was on my feet with an Apostle of the Lord looking right at me patiently waiting for a response. I opened my mouth and the words began to come out. I explained that "this way of teaching allows us to use our faith, acting as agents instead of objects so that the Holy Ghost has power to work in us and instead of feeling fear we feel the spirit and we learn through acting." After saying that Elder Bednar then said to me " You can probably see the truth of that statement just looking back at these last 60 seconds, you had no idea what you were going to say did you?" I said no and then he said " What you said was exactly right, when we act and show our faith, then the Spirit puts the words into our mouth or the thoughts in our mind that we need to take the next step and then looking back we see the evidence of that faith and we learn more."

 He then went on to give examples of this principle in the Book of Mormon.  It might not have been a significant chunk of time but it was a very special moment for me. What really impressed me and touched me was how intently he listened to each and every one of our questions and anwers and then see the expressions of love and care that he had for each one of us in his responses. He genuinely wanted to help us. I could only imagine how the Savior himself would be.  One of the things he invited us to do as we ended the conference was that we should apply this way of teaching and learning with our investigators. I have written a lot, but there is so much more that I could write. But time is not our friend haha. As I've started to apply these teachings I've seen a big difference. 

Well I love all of you. I KNOW that this is the Lords work and his restored church. The restoration continues and we are part of the biggest phase of it yet. We have a lot of work to do and a lot of changes to make, but we have Prophets, Apopstles, and the Lord Jesus Christ at the helm to help guide us. Just keep doing your best. "The worst sin of all is that you stop trying" -Elder David A. Bednar

Have an amazing week. 

Elder Hoyt

Old Comp. Elder Vega  (he is returning home)

Elder Hendricks

Me and Elder Ruiz

Baptism of Francisco

Feeding a members pet raccoon.