Doing our Part

Dear Sisters and Elders –

I hope you all had a positive, revelatory experience watching the worldwide broadcast yesterday, The Work of Salvation.  I know I did.  The messages gave me strength and renewed energy.  What a blessing to be a part of this glorious work!

President Ezra Taft Benson said, "I have often said one of the greatest secrets of missionary work is work!  If a missionary works, he will get the Spirit; if he gets the Spirit, he will teach by the Spirit; and if he teaches by the Spirit, he will touch the hearts of the people and he will be happy" (PMG, p. 121).

Certainly, the Lord will perform miracles to hasten His work.  "The things which are impossible with men are possible with God" (Luke 18:27).  He has prepared people to receive the restored gospel.  However, we must do our part.  He requires our obedience and virtue.  He also requires us to work hard and do our very best.  If we do, we have access to His promises and power.  If we don't, then we are left to our own strength.

I always enjoy reading your letters.  Thank you for the miracles you share.  Much can happen when we are obedient, virtuous, and put forth our very best efforts.  Here are two illustrations shared with me this week:

"This week was literally one massive miracle!  We started doing and performing our best for the Lord. We stopped trusting in our own strength and started to rely on the Lord's. We set goals that we thought the Lord wanted us to achieve and not goals that we knew we could do on our own. The numbers we report to you this week are real and fit within PMG definitions. We didn't achieve these numbers, but the Lord did. We had nothing to do with it; we were just the instruments in His hands. The Spirit was very strong in every single lesson we taught, even in the simple street contacts that we did. We would state simply and clearly our calling as representatives of Jesus Christ and state the importance of our message. Almost every single time, they invited us to visit them…some times that very night. This is the Lord's work, not ours."

"Miracles? This week has been full of them! We have tried our hardest to be obedient and virtuous missionaries. We have been listening to the first thoughts that come in order to better follow the Spirit and we've seen the promises fulfilled. We've made our new motto, 'be a constant.'  We want to do everything in our power to be a constant part of the equation of missionary work. We have been so blessed this past week. We were able to get 5 new investigators and that puts our total of investigators at 12. We've found so many people who have been prepared and we feel so blessed that the Lord has placed so many people in our path. We don't feel we deserve it, but we've been trying so hard to be obedient and virtuous so that we can accomplish the work the Lord needs us to do. It's been really humbling. We didn't find all these people on our own and we definitely aren't the ones teaching these people. The Lord led us to them, and he's allowing us to be the vessels through which His word can come."

Thank you for your faith, work ethic and devotion to the Lord.

With love,

President Pingree

Farewell Missionaries

This week we said farewell to a few missionaries.  Elder and Sister Eldredge have been serving for the past eighteen months at the Huntsville Institute of Religion as a CES couple and with the Heritage YSA ward.  They have given their heart, might, mind and strength to the work and will be missed by many, especially all the young single adults and Huntsville missionaries they have touched.  We wish them well as they settle in Orem, UT.  Also, Hermanas Allred and Hansen received their visas and left to serve in the Cusco Peru Mission and wonderful, Elder Mickelson, returned home a bit early due to some complications with his back.  He served an honorable, faithful mission.  Finally, a few pictures are attached of a North Zone service activity.

 

Elder and Sister Eldredge with Pingrees

Hermana Allred

Hermanas Rife, Hansen and Crandall

Pingrees with Hermana Hansen and Elder Mickelsen

Elder Mickelsen with President Pingree

 

Faith Leads to Miracles

Dear Sisters and Elders –

I received specific and clear revelation from the Lord for our mission during the mission tour with Elder Golden: 

“We must raise our expectations to baptize.  This is the Lord’s work, not ours.  He wants to bless us more than He has.  If we are obedient, virtuous, and work hard, the Lord will perform mighty miracles.”

Elders and Sisters, our God is a God of miracles.  However, He only performs His miracles based on the faith of His children (see 2 Ne. 26:13; 2 Ne. 27:23; Mormon 9:19-21; and Ether12:12, 29-30).  As our faith in God grows, so will the miracles that we experience in this mission.

How do we demonstrate faith in God as missionaries?  At a minimum, God requires us to be fully obedient to the commandments and the missionary rules.  He requires us to be virtuous.  He requires us to work hard and use our time wisely.  If we meet these minimum requirements, we have access to His power and promises.  If we don’t, then we are left to our own strength.

Please ask yourself these following questions:

• Am I fully obedient to the missionary handbook?
• Am I pure and worthy?
• Am I using my time effectively and working hard?

I invite you to review your performance in these areas and to make necessary improvements.  In addition, I invite you to encourage your fellow missionaries to do the same.  If one missionary is not living the minimum requirements, it damages the faith of our entire mission.

I testify that God has tens of thousands in our mission boundaries that are prepared to receive the restored gospel at this time.  They reside in each of our areas.  We must exercise our faith for Him to help us find, teach, and baptize them. In the strength of the Lord, we can do all things (Alma 26:12; Phil. 4:13).

 

With much love, 

 

President Pingree

 

Mission Tour

This past week, the Texas Houston Mission was blessed to have Elder and Sister Christoffel Golden come on a mission tour.  Elder Golden has been a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy since 2001.  He and his family are faithful church members from South Africa.  While he was here, he held three mission conferences where he met with three zones each day.  He also held leadership training meetings each afternoon, interviewed a few missionaries, visited with the office staff and inspected an apartment or two.  His evenings were spent doing a youth fireside and a meeting where missionaries could bring recent converts and investigators to learn more about the Church.  We all learned a lot from Elder Golden!  He is a master teacher.  Among other things,  he primarily taught us to set higher goals and raise our expectations in sharing the gospel by trusting in the Lord and His promises rather than in our own skills and strength.

 

Before each conference, a group picture was taken.  Aside from a few late arrivals, most missionaries are pictured.  We also managed to take a few pictures during lunch, but ran out of time at the last conference.  A big thank you to local Relief Society sisters for providing yummy food for us to eat!

 



Elder and Sister Golden