Dear People,
"I Love You".
Of all the words to open a talk with, he chose the right ones. You could feel his love for all of us in the way Elder Holland spoke. Lots of respect, heaps of admiration, and enough jokes to keep everything flowing nicely.
The first thing he talked about was the Mission itself. Mormons have no rite of passage, no Barmitzvah or Rumshpringer or test of Manhood; the closest we have is stopping life for 18-24 months and getting thrown in the deep end with concrete shoes on and told to walk on water. That's my analogy, not his, and it is essentially how I felt... feel. But yeah, he said that what we're doing now is a huge part of showing that we really want to be Latter-day Saints. He also pointed out that our Church has no logo. Some people know the Angel Moroni statue, some people know the dark blue Book of Mormon with it's golden lettering, but virtually everyone recognizes two young people walking down a jungle path in their Sunday Best as Mormon Missionaries. I suppose that two of us knocking on doors and interrupting dinner is a common theme in other places, but we don't do a lot of that here.
He talked about Prayer, how we're expected to do more than "your thirteen-year-old version of 'Now I lay me down to sleep'", we're expected to wrestle in the Spirit and pour our hearts out, which is how you solidify and make permanent the changes that happen on the Mission. At that same time he also pointed out that part of what keeps us in the Church is having faith. Here's an easy example; imagine 85,000 18 year-old-boys and 19 year-old girls being led by 450 retired couples. Yeah, that's literally what we've got going on, and instead of being a huge disaster, it works! Why? Because we've got God leading us.
The thing I liked best that he said was that the central part of our message, the core of everything we do, is the idea that God Speaks. He spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, He spoke to Jerusalem through His Son, Jesus Christ; He spoke to Joseph Smith in 1820, and He continues to speak to this day! The Book of Mormon is our evidence for this claim, and after nearly 200 years of being published; it's still impossible to destroy. That's why it's so important that people understand our beliefs the moment we Missionaries start speaking to them; they cannot accept our Prophets, Leaders, Missionaries, or Scriptures until they first accept that God Speaks! Current Tense!
So, yeah. That's what I'm here to do. Help people understand that God Speaks, and if you are willing to listen, you'll hear it.
Love,
Elder JE O'Gara
http://www.mormonchannel.org/our-heavenly-fathers-plan?v=1834798902001
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