Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Who can speak too much of the Lord? Also,the gospel should be fun and simple. 11/11/11

Oi!
So, from the fact that my email has an actual title this week, there have been a few things on my mind. I will start with the less serious as to end with some kind of spiritual thought.
Does anybody else realize the historical significance of what is going to happen this week?!?! I have honestly been waiting for this exact week for the majority of my life! This Friday it will be 11/11/11! and at 11:11 this Friday it will be... 11:11 on 11/11/11! I thought about trying to make eleven contacts in eleven minutes, having a moment of silence, eating eleven something I really like, we will see. But The truth is on this day, I am going to be doing exactly what I want to and that is, be in Brasil sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There will be some sort of... brincadera....nope, don´t know that word in English. 
SO, we realized our teaching was getting a little robotic, and we needed to simplify, simplify, simplify. True intelligence is to take a subject that is great and mysterious in itself, and expound upon it and unfold it until a child can understand it. (John Taylor, paraphrased... and not the John Taylor who lives in Medford that is The MAN, but the one who was a prophet of the LDS church in the 1800´s, also The MAN haha)
So, we decided to try something new. We simplified our lesson and we came up with a few object lessons to use to help people understand. We have found two that are particularly effective. One includes using a little plastic colored ball that comes apart. We use each part to represent a part of The Gospel, and to show particularly how prophets and authority from God to act in His name (priesthood) are particularly important and also unique to our message of The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. It almost seemed a little ridiculous but it has been SO effective. We have been seeing much of the fruit of our labors this week finding new people who are prepared by The Lord to hear The Gospel, we used this method to explain and the amount of comprehension in those we are teaching has been amazing. Patricia, told us she had listened to the missionaries many years ago but didn´t really understand the message and gave up but that when we explained she really understood and by the end she was basically explaining to us about why the things we were teaching are important and make sense. This is just one example, we also have been showing people how to get a cooked egg into a water bottle with alcohol and a match and without hurting the egg or forcing it and how that represents baptism by water and The Holy Ghost.
Really living The Gospel should not only be rewarding, and bring peace and joy, but be FUN and enjoyable, and it REALLY is. I love it! It is also incredibly simple, if we focus on what is truly important and take time to open our hearts the beauty of The Gospel is the simplicity of it.
Finally, I have been once again struck with awe at the love of The Saviour Jesus Christ for us. The willingness to descend beneath all things, so suffer, shame, pain, and sorrow, for our sakes fills me with wonder. This Sunday morning I had some time to ponder and I couldn´t help but think of the Hymn. ´ I Stand All Amazed´ I think it gets the closest to summing up my sentiments.  I cannot say enough or sufficiently put into words the feelings in my heart that I have about the humility and love He demonstrated. I invite all to come unto Christ and to learn more of Him, His love, and His Restored Gospel here on the Earth.
Have a great week.
Elder David. F Morgan

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