February is Gone!

This week felt really long.

Exchanges

Tuesday we met with a woman named Mariah. She is a referral from a member in our ward. When we met we found out that she is a baptized member! She lives around a lot of members and had never told any of them that she was baptized when she was a teenager. She was very kind to us. Hopefully we can help her come back.

Thursday we had interviews with President Vest and they were really good. I felt like I was able to learn a lot and he told me a lot of cool ideas from his mission in Japan and it just made me grateful to serve with him. On Sunday we had a meeting with him and the stake presidency regarding the missionary work in the stake. Our stake president is brand new and so he wants to decide on what we will talk about in our meetings here on out. At the end of the meeting President invited Elder Blake and I to read Handbook 2 Chapter 5 so we know how the flow of information is supposed to happen. We learned that the way it is happening in the majority of the stakes of the mission is totally wrong. At the end of our interviews president talked to both of us about it and stressed the importance of us knowing how the Lord would have the church be ran. Things would go a lot better, honestly, we should all know Handbook 2. I think all of our lives would be much better :)

Saturday we met with Ivan and taught about the purposes of fasting again. At the end we invited him to fast that he will be able to get Sunday's off work. Hopefully he will try it out. As we taught, the Spirit testified to me that fasting is REAL! "Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven." I know that is true.

We got to go to the VC with Tay and Georgette on Saturday night. We were able to teach about the temples and family history. Tay and Georgette seemed to enjoy it. After we learned about the temple we went downstairs. Tay went through the church history tour and Georgette sat in on the end of the a fireside that my last ward was putting on. I was able to see a lot of people that I missed and it was fun catching up briefly. The Brackett's family took us there and they are the nicest couple ever. They helped us testify of the temple and they are so solid in the church. 

On our conference call with president Vest last week he shared a really awesome talk I wanted to share with each of you. It is a talk from 1981 by Ezra Taft Benson called, "Fourteen Fundamentals in Following a Prophet". Here are the fourteen points and the talk I would invite you to check it out.

1. Prophet is the only man on the earth who speaks for the Lord in everything

2. The words of living prophets are more vital than the words of the prophets from the standard works

3. A living prophet is more important to us than a dead prophet

4. The Lord will never let the prophet lead the church astray

5. The prophet is not required to have any earthly training or credentials to receive revelation

6. Prophet does not have to say “Thus saith the Lord” to give us a scripture

7. Tells us what we need to know, not always what we want to know

8. Prophet is not limited by men’s reasoning. Isaiah 55:8-9

9. Prophet can receive revelation on any matter: temporal or spiritual

10. Prophet may advise on civil matters

11. Two groups who have greatest difficulty following the prophet are the proud who are learned and the proud who are rich

12. The prophet will not necessarily be prophet with the world or the worldly

13. The prophet and his counselors make up the first presidency, the highest quorum in the church

14. Follow the prophets and be blessed, reject them and suffer

Just thought you guys might enjoy these like I did.

I know that Heavenly Father uses prophets today and that the prophet today is Thomas S. Monson. I know that prayer is a divinely appointed way to communicate with our Heavenly Father. Through diligent prayer we can align our wills with God's and be on track to eternal life.

Love you all!! 

Elder Kelly