Hey Y'all
It has been a difficult but great week. The Lord has really taught me a lot about why it is so important that we are not stagnate in the gospel, but instead are always and constantly progressing to deepen our conversion and strengthen and develop our relationship with our Savior, Jesus Christ. If we are not moving forward we are ultimately moving backwards, and if we are not seeking to gain more and are content then we will ultimately lose what the Lord has graciously given unto us. I have been kind of struggling with feeling like I was growing farther apart from the Lord and feeling like I haven't been as focused on the work and on paying attention to the Spirit and showing charity like I need to be. The Lord has taught me over and over again that if we want to draw closer to Him, then we need to study and ponder our scriptures prayerfully and we need to pray with sincerity and with real intent, understanding that we express the sincerest desires, gratitude, and questions of our heart to our Heavenly Father as we pray. In Preach My Gospel it says that we are His children and He is our Father and as such we can and He desires to give us the answers we seek and desire in our prayers according to His loving will and timing. I am reminded of the Prophet Joseph Smith's humble prayer. I am always blown away by the Spirit as I read about the sincerity of his search and quest for faith and understanding. He started with a sincere question, turned to the scriptures and sought guidance from those he trusted, and then followed the promptings of the Spirit found in the words of the scriptures to ask in faith. He approached our Heavenly Father that spring day with a desire to simply understand and to be delivered from the darkness and confusion that he was faced with and our Heavenly Father and our Savior answered his prayer and delivered him. He was called to be a prophet and the sincere desire of his heart that day and his faith-filled action has subsequently illuminated the world with the hope and peace of the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Elder Swainston shared with me a passage from Jesus the Christ that emphasized what our Savior taught about prayer. He taught that our Heavenly Father already knows what we stand in need of, but that we should simply ask in faith and should pray essentially out of the love and righteous desires of our heart and the humble recognition that we must rely upon our Heavenly Father and our Savior in all things. I am excited to be able to dedicate and focus this week to coming to know my Savior in a much more meaningful and personal way this week by utilizing the time He has given me to serve Him (His time) more effectively, studying and pondering the scriptures more diligently and effectively (ponderizing), and praying concisely and sincerely with an understanding that I am a child of God speaking to my Heavenly Father in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost. We were reading in 3 Nephi with a recent convert about how the Lord had commanded the people to pray and how when his disciples prayed they did pray long and fervently but did not repeat words because the words they were using were being given them by the Spirit and how eventually the Lord commanded them to cease praying but to not cease praying in their hearts. This taught me two things: 1) We will make our prayers more purposeful and meaningful if we rely upon the Holy Ghost for an understanding of what our Heavenly Father and our Savior would have us say (They know what we should express gratitude for and ask for, so that we can receive what we need and righteously desire) and 2) We must have our hearts drawn out continuously to God and act faithfully upon the things we pray about and ask God for. This week we also ran into some former investigators while we were tracting who knew Elder Hafen while he was serving here (He is the Ross's cousin who served here and then moved out here). He and his companion had even been going to their Bible Study every Wednesday night so we got to go with him this last Wednesday. It was a fairly interesting experience and they taught a lot of truth. I found myself thinking that these people are good people who desire to do good and come to know God, but they are missing that essential piece of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, of priesthood keys, authority and power, the calling of prophets, the Book of Mormon, and latter day revelation. How great is the knowledge we have been blessed with and how important it is to make this message known to those "who are kept from the truth because they know not where to find it." This gospel is incredible and amazing and I am so grateful for all of your inspired messages. You have truly helped me feel the Spirit and remember why I am here and the great work that is the Lord's. In fact even while we were e-mailing two of our investigators and one of the managers at Feeding the Valley just walked into the Library. This work is truly important and great and it is the Lord's. I am still trying to work on meals. I have gotten some ideas and am going to try to work on making some better meals throughout the week. As far as what I need, I will eventually probably need a GPS but I know that that is pretty expensive so I could probably go get that when I need it, but if you could just send a few quick, cheap and easy recipes that would be awesome (especially the one for chocolate chip cookies please!) I will also try to take some pictures of our apartment and get that letter written and sent. As far as my journal goes, I haven't written anything in it but I want to set aside some time every night to start writing in it and pondering over the day. It has really been a help though to start looking for the reasons why the Lord called Elder Hansbrow and Elder Swainston to be my companions and trainer and it has really helped me work more effectively and in unity with Elder Swainston and with the Spirit. Andrew, good job going out with Lydia on Halloween. That sounds like it was an awesome experience. Sorry Mandy if you didn't get my last e-mail I think I might have forgotten to add your e-mail onto the list. Anyway, thank you all once again for all of your prayers. Know I pray for you. Be safe in all of your activities and travels.
The Happy Missionary!
Love,
--
Elder Daric Meyers
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