Christ’s Enabling Power

I stand amazed at Christ’s enabling power. I’m a witness of it, especially these past couple of days where I’ve seen marvelous manifestations of it in my own life. It’s difficult to adequately explain or record it, but I will do my best. As tech/social media leaders, we have the opportunity to present each transfer at the new missionary training.

Overshadowing Blessings

There was an excellent theme to the talks given at sacrament meeting. One lady spoke on the principle of focusing too much on a specific need when praying to God. She shared numerous examples of how she was praying for something specific she needed in her life, but continued to see blessings in so many other aspects in life. Despite these many blessings, it wasn’t the specific need that she was looking for that wasn’t being met. She continued to pray and petition God for this need; she expressed her gratitude for the blessings that she has seen, but acknowledged that she was looking for something else right now.

Doing this, she’s now recognized that she was overshadowing and failing to see the marvelous blessings that God was bestowing in those moments. I believe that we are all very vulnerable to this type of spiritual blindness; I’m grateful for the remarks given today highlighting this principle.

Quoting Elder D. Todd Christofferson she shared,

“We ought not to think of God’s plan as a cosmic vending machine where we (1) select the desired blessing, (2) insert the required sum of good works, and (3) the order is promptly delivered. God will indeed honor His covenants and promises to each of us. We need not worry about that. The atoning power of Jesus Christ—who descended below all things and then ascended on high and who possess all power in heaven and in earth—ensures that God can and will fulfill His promises. It is essential that we honor and obey His laws, but not every blessing predicated on obedience to the law is shaped, designed, and timed according to our expectations. We do our best but must leave to Him the management of blessings, both temporal and spiritual.”

Presentation Making with Haste

Many mighty miracles of the Lord’s hand were shown this week through small and simple means. Running against the clock, I was inspired and empowered in putting together our presentation for Zone Conference. Considering the limited time I had, one would think that I would be facing immense stress in this undertaking. I stand amazed at the peace and the clarity that the Lord has brought to my mind, enabling me to be an instrument in His hands. This is just another witness to me that with God all things are possible, despite my shortcomings.

Victoria Zone Conference

This Zone Conference was quite special. Not only because it was the Vincent’s very first, but because of the great manifestations of the Savior’s hand guiding the meeting through the Spirit. There was a heavy emphasis on the account found in Luke 24, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.

I felt inspired to make heavy connections with that story in our presentation. I now realize why. Initially, when putting together the presentation I wasn’t very confident to include the story. It made a lot of sense to incorporate, but I felt this particular scripture story has repeatedly been emphasized by me recently. Looking back, I’m grateful I took the Holy Spirit to be my guide, rather than leaning upon my own understanding.

A musical number was performed: “Abide with me, tis eventide.” It really tied together the meeting very nicely.

Priesthood Blessing

We became informed that our friend Parteek was facing some physical health challenges. We offered to give him a priesthood blessing and he readily accepted. Upon meeting, we learned that he had no significant health concerns which was a relief. He expressed that it’s been having difficulty sleeping at night. As a result, he’s struggled with decreased focus which has impacted his schoolwork.

We gave him a brief rundown upon priesthood authority as this was his very first blessing. Elder Chandler then anointed him, and I sealed it. The room was very still and we all felt great peace in the Spirit. After the blessing, Prateek expressed that he felt really good and reenergized.

I pray that he may remember this Spiritual experience and that his faith will continue to grow. I’m grateful to be a part of supporting him in making his first covenant with God.

With this interaction, I reflected that some of the most spiritual experiences that we have in life aren’t the ones where we are overwhelmed by the Spirit. More often than not, it’s those times of quiet, peace, and stillness. You wonder why the adversary is working so hard to clutter our thoughts with constant distractions.

“And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.” (1 Kings 19:12)

Harmony in the Spirit

Looking back, I marvel at how the Spirit of the Lord has enabled us to be unified with the Vincent’s. Right when they first arrived, we filmed a video consisting of different missionaries sharing their favorite names for Christ and why. The Vincent’s big focus coming in just so happened to be the names of Christ.

When we put together our training for their first cycle of Zone Conferences, we were inspired to make the account of the road to Emmaus in Luke 24 an underlying focus for our presentation. Little did we know, the Vincent’s had a large portion of their training on this very story.

This really is a testament that this is God’s work. As we let Him prevail and hearken unto His Spirit, He prepares a way for His work to move forward. It’s pretty remarkable that we continue to find ourselves on the same wavelength with the mission leaders.

Traveling to Kelowna: A Day Led by God

In the past, scheduling time to film members has been quite difficult. Either missionaries forget to reach out and follow-up or members struggle to find a time that works. However, I really feel that despite the difficulty, member videos are so worth posting to the page. I’ll continue to push and make these videos a goal.

Driving up to Kelowna for Zone Conference, I thought would be the perfect opportunity to film some members sharing their testimony online. So we took time to plan and schedule two member videos before traveling. To my surprise, both worked out, and we had an action packed evening. It’s incredible what the Lord made possible with our limited time constraints. The members were quick to share their witnesses and testified with power.

A Dream of Comfort

Upon arriving at the Kelowna chapel for Zone Conference, we began switching vehicles and completing administrative tasks with other missionaries. Once completed, they left and entered the chapel. Sister Vincent then approached us and said that she had something to tell us. With tears in her eyes she said that she was feeling inadequate and was unsure if she could fulfill her calling. Then, with eagerness, she explained that she had a dream last night. In that dream, she felt that God was reaching out to her. She shared that God comforted her, in response to her fear He said, “look at all these great missionaries who are here to support you.” Among those missionaries she added, we were the ones in her dream, the ones that she can lean on for support.

God truly prepares a way for us. He sends angels to bear us up. I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve in this capacity, the Vincent’s are doing incredible work here in British Columbia!

One Work that Never Ceases

As I’ve taken time to reflect in the stillness of the Spirit, I just stand amazed at how fast and smooth this major change in mission leadership has undergone. I almost feel as if I blinked, and now we have new mission leaders. They are immediately going forth in the full speed and swing of the work, and it is marvelous. They’ve only been here for a month, and I feel like they’ve been here for at least four. It really is a testament to me that this is the work of God. It wouldn’t be possible to make such a major change and maintain the swiftness and unfaltering work that the calling requires without Him.

Our stop in Kamloops

With surprise, we received a message from the Kamloops sisters sharing that they had some members who’d love to be on a video for the mission’s Facebook page. Kamloops is about a four to five hour drive from Richmond, too much driving to warrant a video. Luckily enough we happened to be in Prince George at the time for Zone Conference. And even more lucky, we were driving a vehicle down. By the grace of God we were able to make a stop in the Loops and get filming. Upon arriving we were shocked, the sisters had three members at this park all eager to be in videos, and they were still expecting more members to come! At this point, one could have thought the whole ward may show up. By the end of the filming process we had five member videos come out of it. Pretty incredible! The Master Creator had some great orchestration to make this possible. We even got a video filmed with the sisters as well. We probably won’t be stopping in Kamloops again anytime soon, so it’s a really good thing we have lots of videos completed from this great day.

The Secret Knock

This one’s totally random. Pretty funny moment, I thought would be amusing to include. For context, there’s a scene in the Lego Movie when Vitruvius “administers the secret knock;” which is thus expressed as a single pound on the door. This scene is far too funny from what it warrants to be. When we approached Benjamin’s door, I joked with my companion about administering the secret knock. In which I confidently did, but with great surprise and comedic value, Benjamin immediately swung open the door and greeted us with, “hey brothers!”

It was at this moment that the great hidden power of the secret knock was made manifest. If only this priceless knowledge had been revealed at an earlier time in my mission…

Devotional with Sister Spannaus

The course of this event all came to fruition at the very last minute. On Saturday, at the Surrey/Abbotsford Zone Conference, President Vincent pulled us to the side and asked us if we were busy on Monday. To which our answer led to, “great, we are booking you a ferry to Victoria.” So that was fun.

There will be a devotional from Sister Spannaus the Second Counselor in the Young Women General Presidency, and we were in charge of making sure it was broadcast to the whole mission. So we ferried over and quickly got to work.

Luckily, the devotional was held at the stake center in Victoria, and they had plenty of equipment to facilitate our needs. We were able to tap into their camera system and Zoom setup to stream a webinar to the whole mission. Overall the devotional was pretty good. I’m grateful we had the opportunity to attend and that the broadcast turned out.