The week went well and went really
fast. Me and my companion get along really well. He is a great leader too. Hopefully
I can pick up a thing or two.
The weather here isn’t too bad. Just
crazy cold at night and in the morning and hot when the sun is out. We have a
little heater that says it is 9 to 14 degrees Celsius.
In the zone we have 16 missionaries,
it was 18 but one missionary was sick and got his mission changed. Then we were
down to 17 but the one that was a trio with us got changes. We all get a long
really well. No problems. The majority are newer missionaries. There are
quite a few with less than a year. But there is one with 20 months my companion
with 22 and someone else with the same time as me 17.
Lots of contacting right now, we don’t
have that many interviews to do. Lots of contacting or we will go on divisions.
I think the hardest part right now is getting the investigators of the zone to
go to church.
There was a guy in one of the areas
we taught that was full of great questions and grasped the restoration really
well. When we got there he didn’t even let us get through the usual small talk
he hopped right into "who is Joseph Smith?"
We had a zone inventory yesterday
and we ask if people had problems with us or with anyone else in the zone. It
all went really well and not really any problems. It was more of a good time
and everyone laughing and joking around. Just one person said that they feel
like my companion is too tough on him and that my companion could make the
rocks bleed.
This week I was studying a talk that
is really great it is called the Grace of
God is Sufficient. It talks about how grace isn’t about filling gaps it is
about filling us and changing us. That Jesus didn’t pay the debt in part, he didn’t
pay it all except for a few coins. He paid it all.
But that doesn’t mean that nothing
is required on our part. Jesus Christ requires stuff from us not to repay him
for paying the debt and not even to pay the debt but he requires stuff for the
result of a change.
If Jesus didn’t require faith and
repentance then there would be no desire to change. If he didn’t require that we make and keep
covenants and receive the holy ghost there would be no way to change. And, if
he didn’t require us to endure to the end there would be no internalization of
the changes and they would be superficial, cosmetic and would not become part
of us.
It says that a life impacted by the
grace begins to look like Christ’s life. Instead of us trying to earn heaven we
are trying to learn heaven, practice and prepare for it. Sometimes people are
too excited that the debt is paid in full that they forget why the debt existed
in the first place.
And, today I have started studying a
bit about the importance of understanding the trinity and the importance of
helping our investigators understand it. A talk that came in the new Ensign by Jeffrey
R. Holland.
Love
Elder Blanchard
