I've had to draw a lot of strength from the Book of Mormon this past week. Its been a rough week with cancellation after cancellation leaving us with no other option but to tract or contact in the heat of the day. I’ve read about Alma, Amulek, the sons of Mosiah, Alma’s sons and all of their missionary work and most recently about the people of Nephi as they are encompassed in war with the Lamanites. It's pretty cool how their examples can have real life impact on us today; especially me here in SA. There are a couple lessons that I’ve learned that I’d like to share.
The first one kind of carries over from my last 2 areas of Krugersdorp and Centurion. Both affluent towns, the missionary work and people are different from what I'm experiencing now in Soweto. Then, we dealt with a lot of anti-Mormon claims and accusations which caused a lot of doubt to our investigators and even the missionaries. So what I loved from the examples of missionary work in the Book of Mormon are how the Sons of Mosiah and Alma and Amulek responded when faced by people like the unbelieving Lamanites, Korihor, and Zeezrom is how they stood their ground. Imagine, when a lawyer who knows the language of the people tries to twist words and doctrines to suit them how hard it would be to respond when the spotlight is on you and your companion. Or when people straight up deny the Christ. What I saw in them and what helped me to press forward is that they didn’t give up or give in. And ultimately, after the trial of their faith, they saw, and even produced, miracles! So the storal of the mory is stay true to what you believe, ask the Lord to help you in pursuit of truth and remain hopeful!
Another cool lesson I’ve been learning has occurred this week, and I don't think I'm done learning it either! haha. Eish its been a rough week like I said. People have dropped through, it's been HOT, and motivation has been on the waning side. So what did we do? Unfortunately there were some times where we didn’t use our time as valuably as we should have but fortunately, we pressed on and did our tracting and finding and working with the ward members! So we’re happy that we didn’t just totally flop but even today (Saturday) we’re battling to keep hope and faith and motivation. So I was reading about the stripling warriors and the armies of the Nephites when they take back their cities from the Lamanites in Alma 55-59. With the Lord’s help they were able to pull off some miracles but when it came time to hold on to those things, they were in desperate need of reinforcements and didn’t receive much help. Haha it's kind of like us! Last week was so awesome with great miracles but now that its time to hold onto those things, Elder Manuma and I feel like we need some serious reinforcements! So it's up to us to do like Helaman in Alma 58:9-12 by pouring out our hearts to God to ask Him for help in retaining our works and delivering us from the temptations that are directly related to our purification challenge. So a greater part of peace has come to our hearts, or at least to my heart knowing that all I have to worry about is working hard and not giving up or being lazy and the trial will continue until the Lord sees fit but He won't leave us alone. I truly believe he will buoy me up in some great way this weekend and who knows, maybe next week y’all’ll get the update of the cool things that will happen!
So yeah, just another testimony that the Book of Mormon is written for us today and no matter what situation we are in, we NEED it! But yeah, keep us in your prayers please- we would love that! Pray that we can have the mental and physical strength to press forward in righteousness!! Cheers!
Elder Smith
