The Spirit, A Missionary's Best Pal

(Sent August 25 | Pics on Facebook)

I got my hair cut today! Unfortunately, my mission president didn't allow me to fly out to New York to get my hair cut by my favorite hairdresser. Let down, I know, but it really took all my might to allow the hair school student to touch my hair. It's free for missionaries, though, so that was nice of them.

Anyway, on a more missionary-related note, we taught J this week and it was amazing, as usual. He shared a personal experience he had the week before when he was on his trip to New Orleans with his buddies. He realized how easy it was to neglect his routine of studying the scriptures, and he expressed how guilty he felt for not doing so. He noticed how neglecting that simple routine negatively affected him for that weekend.

And so we shared with him a scripture:

"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19, emphases added).

We explained to him that it is in our nature to not read our scriptures and pray every day because obeying the commandments of God really does take effort. Anytime we do something that brings us closer to God is, essentially, us acting upon our faith by doing works. Just like James said, faith without works is dead.

Here, J was given an experience last weekend to teach him about what kind of situations he wants to put himself in. It taught him the importance of scripture study. It taught him of the protection that studying the scriptures provides for him. It's these kinds of experiences that help him progress more than anything anyone could ever say. He needed a chance to notice lacking the Spirit in his life for a time in order to realize his need for Him.

We, as missionaries, are instruments in the Lord's Hands. We are placed to teach people about the gospel of Jesus Christ and create an environment where they can feel the Spirit. Then the Spirit takes it from there.

I love missionary work. I really do! What a fantastic blessing it is!

Love,
Sister Wen