The big event of the week was our zone conference this past Thursday, the 27th. We had a discussion about the Atonement. The prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 53: 3-9) foretold of the Savior's atonement long before His birth, and he describes the event as such:
3. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him;and with his stripes we are healed.
6. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.
8. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.
9. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.
The importance of coming unto Christ and inviting others to do so is so clearly demonstrated in these written words. We have so much to live up to in order for us to become like our Savior. Because life can never be perfect, it sometimes causes us to fall short of that perfection for which we so persistently strive. A valuable lesson I learned from this zone conference came from the gift of prayer: During a time of trial, our task should be to pray to overcome our circumstances rather than pray for different and better circumstances. Pray to the Lord for deliverance according to your faith. Rejection of the Atonement is rejection of everything you can become. Why settle for less when the Lord's allowing us to be all we can be?
We prayed for miracles this week due to our severe lack of investigators being in town. We were blessed with twelve inactive members attending church this past Sunday, our biggest miracle. Another miracle occurred when we were walking down the dirt road of an unfinished section of a neighborhood. We saw a guy dirt biking towards us, and eventually he stopped us, introduced himself as TJ, and started asking us a bunch of questions about the church and about the gospel! We had an awesome discussion with him, and he was a lot of fun to talk to. We are praying for success with him as with our other investigators.
That mostly sums up our week. Our weather radio is telling us of severe storms coming soon, so watch Oklahoma weather when you have spare minute :)
Elder Garner
No comments:
Post a Comment