Um Apóstolo do Senhor

So, this past Saturday we had an amazing day. Our mission received a visit from one of the twelve apostles. It was absolutely amazing. I had the honor of conducting the hymns. I was kind of nervous. I conducted the special musical number that our whole mission sang too. (By the way, Sister Dias told me I was to conduct the musical number the day of the meeting! Good thing I´m pretty well rehearsed in that kind of thing... But nonetheless I was a little nervous and shaky...)
It was really uplifting. I learned a lot and I can´t really share everything that I learned. But I´ll share with you some of the high lights.

So, first off he started with a greeting from President Monson. President Monson told Elder Bednar to tell us that they love us and pray for us. It was a really nice thing. He said that as he was leaving his meeting with the 1st presidency and the quorum of the twelve President Monson stopped him and told him to give us that message.

He said that the Book of Mormon has two underlining themes.

1st - Come unto Christ
2nd - In the Strength of the Lord

We all like to study by topic, which is a good thing, but when we see how topics are related we will truly understand things better. He also said some interesting things about faith, and a praying in faith.

We´ve all heard the prayer at church "please help those who are not here this week that they can be here next week," which he said is a nice and sincere prayer, but is completely lacking in faith. Faith leads to action, so he gave an example like "we´ve noticed that there are many of our brethren missing here today, and we pray that after we leave this meeting to go out and find them and bring them back even though we may be hungry. please help us to have the inspiration to not all end up at the same person´s house." That´s praying in faith.

He also shared some interesting things about the future for when we are parents. It´s interesting to think that as parents your responsibility is to raise our children to leave you, and if they leave you and are unable to fend for themselves you´ve failed as parents. It´s the same thing as missionary work with the people we teach. The people we teach need to learn to rely on the Lord and not on us as missionaries. (you know teach a man to fish verses giving a man a fish) We just show them the way and how to do it.

Missionary work is not so much what you do, but who you are. Be what we preach. Have clean eyes. The natural man is selfish, but the saint turns outwards.

Anyway, there is more that I learned, but as I was learning from Elder Bednar, teaching is more than just talking. It´s 1- listening 2- observing 3- discerning and 4- talking. Those are the steps of teaching.

I´m really grateful for the opportunity I had this past week to learn from an apostle of the Lord. It was truly amazing. We live in a period where prophets and apostles are on the earth. What a blessing it is to have them to guide us and teach us. It´s just one more thing that strengthens my testimony that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christ´s true church. God will always guide His people by prophets, because He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

I love you all. Thank you for all your love, support and prayers. Have a great week.

-Elder Samuel H. Chiba