Faithful & Competent

My week was awesome!

Missionary Activity- I think the highlight of my week was the youth missionary activity.  This week all the youth were combined and we did a huge missionary activity.  We had Caesar help us by letting us practice teach the restoration. He was my companion and we taught Sister Allen for five minutes. Then we broke everyone off into companionships,  gave them a Book of Mormon and a Pamphlet, and we had them study. We took all the leaders to a room, gave them a character, and took each companionship to a door where they were able to knock and be a teacher to these people.  The youth LOVED it and they did SO GOOD!  It was a huge hit.  After we testified and the Spirit was SO strong. It was an awesome activity!

Primary- In Primary we also got to do sharing time.  I want to be in primary for the rest of my life.  We told stories and talked about how we can be like Jesus.  I told a story about how I saved a man with a bloody nose once... that was a good day :)

MLC- We had Mission Leadership Council this week and I had two favorite trainings. First was a training where President talked about how we cannot be discouraged with less success.  We have to recognize even when we are rejected that the Gospel is ROLLING forth.  He talked about King Nebuchadnezzar's dream and how prophesies always come true.  Even if we aren't large in numbers WE ARE SO MIGHTY!  We literally are God’s Kingdom.

My other favorite was about numbers chasing.  I'm not a numbers chaser but I have never wanted to submit straight 0's.  I want to have good key indicators every week, and he talked about how having that desire ISN'T NUMBERS CHASING.  In fact, in many ways, if good intentions are in mind numbers chasing is a good thing.  I loved that training.  It's like striving to get a good grade in school.  A good grade can many times show what you know, and it's the same with key indicators.  It's not a bad thing to want a billion baptismal dates!  It's actually good and healthy.

President said something this week I would like to share.  He said:

 A missionary can be faithful (obedient) but not competent (effective). We need missionaries who are both faithful and competent, in other words, obedient and effective.

I recently read the following story that provides some context:

Imagine for a moment you are a farmer with acres of golden wheat ready to harvest. You hire two men to help you do the job. The first man goes out to the field and starts up the combine, a machine that has been specifically designed to harvest wheat in the most effective way possible. The second man goes out into the field with a pair of scissors. He plans to first snip each individual stalk down and then sort the grain by hand. Who will accomplish more?

What does that teach us about faithful and competent? Or obedient and effective?

Imagine that the man with scissors is up early snipping away. He diligently works all day and is the last one to leave at night. While he is faithfully participating in the harvest, his ineffective methods ensure that he accomplishes little. He is faithful but not very competent. Meanwhile, the man with the combine harvester goes out to the same field for an hour. Due to the effectiveness of his approach, in an hour of effort he harvests more than his partner does by slaving away all day. He can then take his combine to other fields and double, triple, or even quadruple the amount of grain harvested. He is both faithful and competent.

Some missionaries think they “just have to be spiritual” and work hard and missionary work will just happen. In missionary work, obedience (faithful) and skills (effective) are both required if we want to harvest many souls. That is why obedience does not necessarily translate into success in regards to helping people be baptized. Helping people progress requires some skill and effective teaching methods. An obedient missionary, accompanied with faith, having developed necessary missionary skills, is most effective. A missionary who has developed skills that is disobedient, weakens his/her effectiveness. The Lord needs missionaries who are both faithful and competent.

This is SO TRUE FOR LIFE!! We can be do so many things and not do them effectively.  We have to be effective!  I love you all!