Nothing too spectacular happened this week, but we did have a surprise trip to Naga on Wednesday. Getting to stay in the Assistants apartment was nice. I got to have air conditioning and a hot shower, the first time for either of those since I got home. But don't think I'm getting spoiled. I'm back to using a bucket again so no worries. The trip was because of some problem that had happened here in the area before I was assigned to the area, so President Reeder sent us back with specific directions to be exactly obedient, so that was what we really worked for this week. It hasn't been to hard to do actually, especially since I had some new ideas about obedience this week.
But working toward that end has really helped us out this week. On Friday night, we finally got into the home of a part member family that we have been trying to work with for a while now. The problem was, the husband wasn't home, which means we couldn't teach because there was no adult male. It wasn't super hard to make the decision to leave, but we had really wanted to teach them that week in order to give their daughter more support at home. As we left the house we were thinking about how we would have to work things out with teaching them, when we saw our Branch Mission Leader out of nowhere. We told him what happened and he said "ok let's go teach her then." That lesson turned into one of the best lessons we have given here and had so much more of an impact than it would have had we blown off the rules and just taught. It really showed how we can be blessed if we are just obedient.
Which is why I'm so glad to have had the chance to get a new perspective on obedience. Some missionaries have such a hard problem with obedience, but I think it's because they don't understand why it's important. It's not just some arbitrary set of rules imposed by the President and General Authorities. And they aren't something to follow just to say we do. But when we look at them in the light of following them to become more Christlike, the entire motivation to be obedient changes. Are we obedient because we will get in trouble if we aren't? Do we follow the rules because we know we have to? Or do we do what we do because we are trying to become more Christlike and humble? 2 Nephi 31 says that Christ was baptized to show that he was willing to humble himself before the father and become obedient to his commandments, to show the example before us. Thinking in this way doesn't make it a question of is it right or wrong to do something, but rather is the choice I'm making helping me come unto Christ. And I think that makes choosing the right a whole lot easier. So that's my take on obedience for the week.
I love you all so much and thank you for your support. I'll talk to you again next week!
Elder Van Boerum
1/12/14
The last night with Juben
No comments:
Post a Comment