Well once again it is catch up time for the President’s letters. Here are the last two.

We will be blessed with additional revelation and miracles when we prepare our members to help us “do” in teaching and making commitments:

“We had a family investigating and they were pretty cool. However, they did not come to church last week. We took a member with us to the last lesson before this Sunday. We trained her. We talked to her about what we were going to talk about with the family and what commitments we wanted to provide. We talked to her about her purpose and how she could fulfill her purpose in this lesson by providing testimony and invitations. We said a prayer and we were off. The lesson went great. We taught about the Restoration. The member provided wonderful testimony. And at the end of one of the testimonies, one of church, she invited the family to church. They said yes! But they didn’t have a car. Our member provided that as well. She even got their number and committed to call them Sunday morning to see if all was ready. And then the family came to church. We know for a surety that they came in the largest measure because of the friendship and support provided by our member.

We will be blessed with additional revelation and miracles when we show forth faith and round-up our investigators for Church:

“When we were going out to round up and pick up people for church we went to the apartment of a lady we met last week. I knocked on the door and a little girl answers and I ask ‘Is your Mother here?’ The little girl said ‘Yeah she’s coming, we’re all coming!’ I thought ‘Who’s all of you?!’ Then I see two more young men come out and then our investigator follow after! I was simply astonished at what the Lord had just done! We got them to church and after sacrament I asked them if they would all prepare for baptism? Our investigator said ‘I’ll think about it but I love this church I love how it makes me feel, it’s so wonderful.’ They all came to our baptism and it was an awesome experience! When our new member left to change, the meeting was opened to testimonies. After a few members, our investigator got up and began telling us about how she had a dream about the missionaries and how wonderful they would make her feel. Never had that before! It was powerful! After the closing prayer I asked her again about baptism this time she said ‘Yes, I’ll do it next week and I want my children to be baptized too.’ All four were baptized Sunday.”

God will lead and guide us with additional revelation and miracles as we go and do:

“Some of our appointments fell through…  so we decided to do some Harvesting. We weren’t anywhere near the place we’ve been working on so we weren’t sure where to go. My companion just smiled and said, ‘Follow the Spirit.’ We drove for about 2 minutes before a road caught my eye. As we drove down it we found a man who had been to church several times when I first got here but we hadn’t seen him in weeks! He would never tell us where he lived so we could go teach him and we had no way to contact him. As we saw him outside by the road we had a brief moment of panic and then a ton of excitement! We pulled over and got out to talk to him. We found out that he really wanted to be baptized! We had asked him before but he never felt ready. It’s amazing how the Lord puts us in the path of those who are prepared! He came to church and was baptized on Sunday! I’m so grateful for the promptings of the Spirit and being led to where we needed to be!”

Sometimes we get stuck in the rut of not doing those things that are priority and promote our purpose, instead we surround ourselves with menial and tedious things that distract from our purpose and cause us to be “found wanting” when it comes to bringing souls to Christ. Last week I received the following letter from one of our missionaries:

“This week was full of miracles! We had the opportunity to bring 8 souls unto Christ through baptism this Sunday! It was amazing! They came from 3 separate families and 3 different finding methods. One family came from a member referral, another came from street contacting his wife (who should be getting baptized this upcoming Sunday), and another family came from an inspired harvest. We only had time for one door so we prayed and both agreed on their house. The member referral we believe were indirect blessings for all of our hard work. Our OYM, we believe, were blessed with because we street contacted his wife immediately after, what we could have taken as, a discouraging experience, but instead of letting it get us down we contacted the first person we saw. And for our harvest family we became their friends and always helped them feel and recognize the spirit. With all of them the moment we found them we were sure to offer a prayer of gratitude. And because of the gratitude the Lord continued to bless us.”

I love the “balance” of finding that these missionaries were able to implement in their work. They were able to employ several ways to find and therefore “balance” out the power that comes by being faithful and diligent in finding. In Proverbs we read:

“A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight.” (Proverbs 11:1)

A righteous, organized, and inspiring planned out balance of our work will always be a “delight” to God. Uninspired busy work, work without our Purpose, is an “abomination to the lord”. A good, even balance also shows our integrity to God as Job teaches:

“Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity.” (Job 31:6)

Elder Ballard teaches us:

“…  Maintain balance. Free and open doctrinal discussion is important in gospel scholarship, but remember that most things have been put into place by God and simply are not subject to change. The doctrines and principles of the Church are established only through revelation, not legislation. This is God’s plan; we do not have the prerogative to alter or tamper with it…Our task is to integrate the principles of the gospel into our lives so that our lives will be in balance. When our lives are in balance, before you realize it your life will be full of spiritual understanding that will confirm that your Heavenly Father loves you and that His plan is fair and true and we should strive to understand it and enjoy living it. (M. Russell Ballard, General Conference, October 1993)

Balancing our priorities with our member referrals to do “all” we can to help them keep commitments, even magnifying our “power and authority”:

“We showed up at the house of our investigator, a really elect member referral, but she does not look happy. We go in and find out that she slipped and yesterday and is in a lot of pain.  She is 75 and already has back problems so that was not good.  As we talked I was really worried about seeming insensitive by trying to still get her to come to church that day, she honestly wasn’t looking good at all.  Then the thought came to my head to give her a blessing.  I took out my oil, freshly blessed a few days before, and we gave her a blessing.  As we left the blessing the thought came to my head that, ‘You might not be able to change someone’s agency, but you can heal them.’ She came to church and stayed the entire time.  She is getting baptized next week.  I love this work!”

Helping our investigators balance out their commitments with our members, will give them the desire for more:

“Our amazing investigator got baptized yesterday! It was an amazing baptism! Last Sunday we taught him the word of wisdom knowing he had a problem with smoking, coffee and tea, our branch president was there which helped a lot too. He completely accepted it but didn’t know if he could do it. So we gave him a priesthood blessing. Then the next morning he got up to smoke, like always, not thinking about it and he said it made him sooo sick he almost threw up for a good 30 minutes. Then he crushed them and threw them away and took the trash out and hasn’t touched them since… He gave up tea and coffee in the next 3 days too. Boom! The priesthood is real! What a miracle! He also got a hold of the D&C and loves it. Especially loves the priesthood now… and also is doing his genealogy on family search, has made it pretty far already AND ordered the ensign…. is listening to Motab on Mormon channel all day… and the list goes on… He is amazing!!!!!!”

Balancing and following up with the commitments and priorities we have been taught and given, will guide us to those the Lord has prepared:

“Last week you challenged all of us to look up an old investigator from the Area Book and give them a second chance. We pulled two people out and the first one was in the Hospital. You also have been teaching us about the importance of leaving the “how” to the Lord. Well I’ve been struggling to do this without really realizing I was struggling with it until a few days ago. Yesterday my companion and I were able to fast. It’s so very true that fasting make us so much more receptive to the Spirit! I found myself being able to look past the “how” and knowing that if we gave our absolutely best effort and worked our hardest then the Lord would make up for the rest. As we walked back to our car,  my companion opened her mouth to a woman who was walking behind us. She told us her name and was very kind as we turned the corner to a quieter street and she accepted a prayer. After the prayer, tears rolled down her cheeks and she gave us both big hugs. We asked her to follow what she felt and be baptized; she then told us that she had met with missionaries before. My jaw almost dropped because then I realized that she was the 2nd name we had pulled out of the Area Book and hadn’t had a chance to go visit yet! God had helped us be obedient to the commandment He had given us through you as we left the ‘how’ to the Lord!”