Hello Everybody,
So this past week has been awesome. I'll first let you know how the missionary work is going, then I will talk about Elder Bednar. So the big news of this week is that we have a baptismal date, the investigator from Nigeria named Bukki is preparing for baptism on Oct 1. Bukki is awesome, and we are excited to help her to prepare for baptism. We also extended the invitation for baptism to Janos and Edmund from Trinidad, but they both wanted more time to read the Book of Mormon and to gain Faith before they commit to baptism. Transfers are next Wednesday, so hopefully I will stay in High Wycombe and be able to keep working with Bukki, Janos and Edmund.
Now lets talk about Elder Bednar. So the format of Elder Bednar's presentation was question and answer. The first hour and a half of the meeting was focused on what we the missionaries had learned from studying three Elder Bednar talks that were assigned to us in preparation for the mission conference. The three talks focused mainly on learning by faith and teaching with the spirit. Elder Bednar focused on the idea, that as missionaries we need to help our investigators to become self-reliant and to gain there own testimonies. The way we do that is we give them the basic principles of the lessons in Preach My Gospel, and then we invite them to learn for themselves through study, personal pondering and prayer, and other activities where they can act in faith such as baptism or telling their friends and family about the gospel. He explained that this principle not only applies to missionary work, but also to raising children and instructing other members of the church in Priesthood Quorums/Relief Societies etc. Some other things he talked about is how there are foolish and false traditions in our church that prevent us from learning by faith and teaching by the spirit. This includes "taking copius notes" in meetings with general authorities, he said that because we need to record what the Holy Ghost teaches us personally rather than just writing down everything that is said in the meeting. Another false tradition is writing Sacrament meeting talks word for word. He said that this prevents us from teaching by the spirit to our ward, and therefore prevents the ward from learning by faith. This is hard for me, because I usually write my talks word for word, but I am going to try to heed this council in the future.
The second part of the meeting was an hour long period, where we could ask questions to Elder Bednar and to Gerard Causse a member of the Seventy who accompanied him to our meeting. One of the questions was, "Why are there not as many prophecies from modern day prophets as there were in Old Testament or Book of Mormon times?" Elder Bednar said that he would contend that prophecy is as "frequent and pointed" today as they were in the past. He gave two examples of modern prophecy, the first is D&C 88 and the other is The Family: A Proclamation to the World. He said that when the Proclamation was released in 1995, that the statement that "Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God" was generally accepted. But now in 2011, anyone who believes that statement is deemed "bigoted" by society. He said that President Hinckley released the Proclamation, knowing that in the future that it would be a strength to the members in a world with shaky family values. This was a question that I had been wondering for a while, so I was really excited to hear what he had to say about it. There were many great questions and many profound answers given. At the end of the meeting, Elder Bednar stood to bear his testimony and he spoke with such great power. I can say without a doubt that he has a knowledge that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that Elder Bednar is called of God to represent Jesus Christ to the world. It was an amazing privilage to witness an Apostle of the Lord.
I've written alot, so I will end it here, but there is so much to talk about. I hope you have a great week and gain a stronger testimony of Jesus Christ this week. I love you all.
Elder Price
