Missionary Monday - Week 6 in Itapecerica
Good Morning! Everything is great here. The Itapecerica da Serra 1 Ward is heating up. Its going to be a white Christmas!
Recently I have been thinking a lot about why a good amount of members of the church seem to have a lack of urgency or commitment when it comes to things like ward activities, callings, or being on time to any sort of church function. I recognize that I was one of these members and I think there are various factors, but as I thought about it I remembered something President Dalton said in a conference. He talked about a bunch of different kinds of missionaries. Elder Sick who says he wants to work, but just can't because he is always sick. Elders Depressed and Negative who work but nothing seems to ever work for them. Elders Nursery and "Just Baptize" who double the primary (temporarilly). Then he talked about Sister Blessing who is just so happy to be able to serve a mission at a younger age now and knows that all young men are asked to serve a mission, but for sisters it is not required. So in her mind she is doing the world a favor, and everything that she does is a blessing! So she frolics through her mission seeing the sights and helping someone here and there when its convenient and doesn't really think about the things left undone. I thought this was pretty funny, but then the other day it occured to me that we have a lot of Brother and Sister Blessings in the church. We know that everything in the church is voluntary, we don't get paid for our positions like in other denominations, so we don't feel any real sense of obligation. Anything that we do, is a blessing! We never arrive late to work because we know we will lose money or get fired, but then we aren't so concerned about showing up to church on time or going to an activity. Its true that we won't get a pay reduction for slacking off in our church responsibillities, but we sure will lose blessings (and maybe our salvation in the Celestial Kingdom...).
Élder Beck
Notice: I will not be online next Monday. We will send email at another time during the week that is still left to be determined.
Pictures - We found an oasis.
