Hey hey,
Today is another happy day in the life.
I'm gonna jump right in to what I've learned this week. From class and devotionals the theme of this last week appeared to be praying. I'd say I pray ... realistically ... 20-25 times a day. Those prayers being all out, on my knees, offering the sincere thoughts of my heart. Those do not include the prayers that go through my head during study, during lessons, during counseling with other missionaries and so on. We pray so much, Elder Ogan, one of my roommates, has bald patches on his otherwise hair hidden knees. I tell you this to give some credibility to my stipulation that before this week I understood what it meant to pray.
In our Sunday devotional, we learned about offering specific prayers and how they can strengthen out relationship with God. In this process we recount to our Heavenly Father what we did during the day, kind of like we're checking in, and we're very realistic with ourselves while we do this. Then we recognize all that God has blessed us with in that day even if they're the same things we receive every day. Next, we implore for those things we desire as they are in accordance with God's will for us. In asking it is critical that we search out what God's will is for us, so we can know what to ask for and better understand how he wants us to grow. I believe that God knows what we are ultimately able to become, and i also believe that it is someone far greater than we could ever become of our own volition. So as we seek his will, we can trust that if we do all he asks of us in diligence we will lead the kind of lives that will end in the realization of all that we hope to become, because God´s will, will be our will, and God's will is the Immortality and Eternal Life of man (being perfected and living His presence). If you don't pray with specificity, start to. If you already do this, be more explicit in what you can be grateful for and in what things, exactly, you want help with.
A quick tangent. The brother of Jared, who was commanded to build 8 barges so his family could cross an ocean went and asked God with faith if he could have light in his barges during the trip. Christ responded, what would you have me do? The Brother of Jared then gathered 16 stones and asked that God touch each one with his finger so they could glow and so his family could have light during their journey. It's important to realize God did not simply bless them with light upon request, but instead asked what the Brother of Jared thought should be done, and then decided if it was a good or a bad plan.
In our lives we must address God in context. We can address our problems first by bringing them up to the Lord, then studying them out in our mind until we think we've found a reasonable solution, and then we can bring them before the Lord to see if he will "touch our stones" so to speak. In dong so we should give heed to what is God's will for us so we can ask for those things which are important to us or which he wants us to accomplish. Hopefully this brings clarity to specific prayer.
Now for the good stuff! On Tuesday we heard from Elder Daniel Johnson of the First Quorum of the 70. His topic was on who we believe God is. He brought to our attention the accepted Christian definition of prayer which i tried to write down but only got in parts. It was essentially that God is an immense and unknowable being who we cannot understand. He is above all passion and is both separate from and one with Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. The takeaway was, he is incomprehensible. He then commented on how missionaries do not take enough time helping people understand our belief in God and they should spend more time because it is very different from the rest of the World. Things we've grown up knowing must not be taken for granted because they change the very foundation of religion. The God, the one I know, is our literal spiritual father. He is a man with a perfected body of flesh and bone. His ultimate purpose is our eternal salvation and accordingly he weeps with us when we make mistakes and he rejoices with us in our successes. His firstborn son is Jesus Christ who has been ressurrected and he too has a body of flesh and bone. The third member of the Godhead which is united for the purpose of bringing salvation to mankind, is the Holy Spirit. It is critical that he does not have a body, so that we can feel his influence on our souls. If we can effectively teach this principle all other lessons will be a joy, because people will understand their place as a part of one large spiritual family, where the head is dead-set on their success and will do anything to help them.
Elder Johnson then asked if we had a personal testimony of all those things we preach, and asked us to pray specifically to know by the spirit if these things are true. He then promised us that if we would ask with a sincere heart and real intent we would receive an answer we would never forget. the five questions he told us to ask God are as follows:
1. Do you really exist?
2. Do you have a body of flesh and bone?
3. Do you know that I exist?
4. Do you know my name, about my family, and the things I go through each day?
5. Do you really love me?
I am so greatful for his invitation. I hope you'll do as i have, and pray to know for the first or the hundreth time, the answers to these questions. I can bear fervent testimony that the answer to each question is firm, compassionate and loving yes, and it's a yes for every person.
Attached is where I sleep (on the left) yes mom I make my bed now. The other picture is what Halloween looked like for us here at the CCM.
Lots and lots of love,
Elder Tyler Meidell
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