Elder Morey and Zander Oostveen
Dominoes with Brigitte
So we met up with Zander Oostveen at zone conference in Amsterdam. The conference was good, I always enjoy them and take a lot of notes. Now I just need to look back on the notes. Lots to do here. There were a couple sisters who gave their dying testimonies that I knew a bit so it was nice to hear what they had to say.
Zander is from Utrecht and is 19. He's very quiet by nature but I enjoy talking to him, he knows some really cool stuff and has a good personality. He's still trying to decide if going on a mission is a good choice for him. We've had a whole lot of great experiences lately that he's been able to be present for, so hopefully he'll get a good taste of what wonderful things and valuable experiences can be had on a mission. Every missionary is important, the Lord needs more of them and they also need to be helped to recieve more preparation for the immensly challenging mission field. Not necessarily challenging as in it's difficult to get by but there are so very many possibilities and opportunities for personal growth and serving as an instrument in the Lord's hands that the more prepared you can be the better.
I didn't really know what mission prep was before I came out, I usually thought of it as developing teaching skills and getting people to come to church and encouraging them to learn more about the gospel. While being out on my mission I've been grateful to see that I have been prepared by all of the good pursuits, skills, and habits that I worked on, especially when it comes to just trying to live the principles of the gospel that I heard about in church and at home. As an example, I'm grateful for learning how clean things well through my job washing travel trailers, also because I was taught to wash the dishes at home. There are a lot of skills I have that I wouldn't now be benefitted by had it not been for my parents care in teaching me how to be responsible and indepentent in numerous facets of everyday life.
As I was saying, being well prepared for the opportunities a mission gives involves how well you learned to responsibly and indepentently handle everyday life before your mission. I expect that that is naturally also the case for being prepared for life after my mission. That being said, it's amazing that the Lord sends us missionaries out here at all considering our vast incompetence in handling the responsibility of teaching and helping others to live this gospel that we are still very weak in.
But, I suppose that that's just it, it's not our "level" of adherence to living the gospel that matters. What missionaries need to do is apply the gospel of Jesus Christ to their lives and do their best to follow him and the Lord will use them to do what he needs done. I have seen that the Lord does his own work for his children by himself. He prepares us and uses every one of us.
I'll have to cut the preaching short, I'm almost out of time. I'll just say that the Lord really does use imperfect instruments with amazing success. I'm so grateful for his patience and love with human weakness and the understanding and love that he gives us even in our weakness. I could say so much about it. I hope that I can help others around me or wherever they are to believe that their Heavenly Father knows them and loves them no matter what. Also that the depths and implications of his love and mercy will never be comprehended, only hopefully embraced by every one of us.
I'm really sorry I didn't answer your questions, I would love to next week if you could copy and paste them over. Also I'm sorry I didn't do pictures, I need to take more this week.
I love you all,
Elder Knaupp
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