Missionaries

[Jane_Doe]

7 minutes ago, Grunt said:

I can't imagine his burden.  I was discussing in YM this weekend the latter-days, as it was the Doctrinal Topic for the week. Being in the Bishopric is a spiritual burden I hadn't felt before.   The pressure to be as pure, worthy, and accessible as possible takes up much more of my thoughts than I ever considered.  Getting pulled in at a seconds notice to deliver a blessing or set someone apart, being asked to do a Temple Recommend interview, or just counsel with a member going through a hard time is a possibility at any time.   Sometimes I feel overwhelmed trying to stay in touch with the spirit or be worthy to minister to members.  
 

This isn't a complaint or bad thing, it's just something I've become more noticeable of lately.  Spiritual preparedness can be more difficult than physical.   It's odd to think that we're coming up on the anniversary of joining this forum, yet here I am.

 

And @zil2 was the first person to respond to me.

You ain’t perfect Grunt, but you’re still awesome. I’ve majorly been honored getting to know you throughout the years. 

[zil2]

21 minutes ago, Grunt said:

And @zil2 was the first person to respond to me.

Go figure.  I had to go look.  In typical fashion, I focused on the task and missed the person and the additional issues behind the one mentioned.  It's a weakness I'm trying to work on.

[Grunt]

On 8/8/2017 at 8:11 PM, person0 said:

When I was a missionary, it was made clear that the personal commitment is more important than the can or can't.  If someone was able to drop cigarettes or coffee for a full 7 days, and maintained that they agreed to the commitment to keep the Word of Wisdom, they were not held back from being baptized.  This was done with the full knowledge that some would likely continue to battle with quitting for a while.  The fact that they were acknowledging the commitment to be obedient to the law was seen as more important than the complete overcoming of the addiction.  Repenting and overcoming addictive substances is usually a process for most people, although it begins with a decision and commitment to do it.

Is there anything wrong with eating a piece of fruit?  Yet Adam and Eve ate a single piece of fruit, and as a result brought death and our initial separation from God upon themselves and all mankind.  Bacon is probably my favorite food in the world, yet it was a forbidden meat to the people of God for thousands of years.  I have been a member for most of my life, I still don't see anything 'wrong' with it.  However, I do believe that the Lord's ways are not my ways, and that my wisdom is foolishness to God.  Drinking coffee or beer is not wicked, it is not inherently sinful in any way, just as eating a piece of fruit, or bacon/ham, etc, is not sinful or wicked either.  Jesus himself drank wine.  The sin is in the disobedience to God's commandment.  There are plenty of legitimate reasons to keep or not keep the Word of Wisdom, but if God commanded what was not right to put in our bodies in the past, I personally consider it completely reasonable that he would command such again, if He did call another true prophet.  I personally believe he did.

They wouldn't allow it if you weren't actually committed.  There is a brief interview before you get baptized where you are asked if you accept and are willing to keep the Word of Wisdom.  I wouldn't do it either without knowing that I am willing to strive to keep the commandments expected of me.

In the revelation itself, the first reason God declares is, "adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints", the second is, "In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days".  The law, in some aspects, has more to do with the weak, and all of us abstaining together because none of us will be able to easily determine who should abstain and who shouldn't.  These products are marketed to the masses for the purpose of financial gain, getting wasted at a party is a common activity.  You yourself may never have any interest, but many would if it weren't for the law.  Ultimately, these reasons and others are less important than simple obedience.

To me personally, as noted above, a powerful lesson in understanding the Word of Wisdom has been in understanding that God has always given one, starting with Adam and Eve, ours is just different than the laws of health that have been commanded in the past.  It is tailored to the needs of mankind in our day and age.

Some of the posts in this thread are spot on and worth annotating.  The missionary that taught me online (that I've collaborated with on other projects) is trying to merge our stories into one.  It's pretty interesting.  As such, I've been going through this thread as well as listening to my interview to keep the timeline straight.

There are some "words of wisdom" hidden here, so I'll likely quote them forward so I can use then with others that are struggling in some areas, as long as that's allowed.

Oddly, I've never looked back at the Word of Wisdom, even though my testimony of it is lacking.  This post from @person0 is really good, though.

Edited May 29 by Grunt

[Grunt]

On 8/10/2017 at 8:45 PM, Grunt said:

Thanks.  I've been as honest with them as I have here.  If I knew the BoM to be true and agreed the WoW was God's law, of course I'd be baptized.  You'd have to be insane to know God has a true church and has commanded you to do something and then not do it.  

I think this statement sums up my church experience thus far.  There are so many things I don't have a testimony of, yet adhere to because of the things I do have a testimony of.

[mirkwood]

2 hours ago, Grunt said:

I think this statement sums up my church experience thus far.  There are so many things I don't have a testimony of, yet adhere to because of the things I do have a testimony of.

Which really is not different from the majority of the church membership.

[Grunt]

On 8/26/2017 at 6:20 PM, Grunt said:

The Bishop called me tonight and asked if I'll be at church tomorrow because he "wants to get to know me better".  He hasn't said anything beyond introducing himself to me on my first visit (I've only been to this one ward but it's small from what I can tell though I have nothing to compare it to).  What am I in for?  Maybe I just think there is an ulterior motive for everything, although thus far there HAS been an ulterior motive for everything.

This post made me laugh.  That same Bishop, who is no longer a Bishop, called me last night to get some insight from me as a Bishopric member.   Bizarro World.

[zil2]

58 minutes ago, Grunt said:

Bizarro World.

  I have found that the Lord's ways are the inverse of the world's ways - and we're so used to the world's ways that when we encounter the Lord's ways, it takes us by surprise - but it's a good surprise.

[askandanswer]

On 5/30/2023 at 9:25 PM, Grunt said:

I think this statement sums up my church experience thus far.  There are so many things I don't have a testimony of, yet adhere to because of the things I do have a testimony of.

And hopefully this is an ever-evolving situation.

[Grunt]

On 11/12/2017 at 8:58 PM, zil said:

There is a simple (not the same as easy) solution to this problem - don't lead the prayer yourself, let the Spirit do it.  Let go of your own thoughts and ideas on what to pray for, silently ask for the Spirit to guide the prayer, and then just say the opening words and let the Spirit tell you what to say after that.  I don't know how one learns to do this because I'm not sure when I started doing it, and it doesn't necessarily take away the nervousness, but you don't have to worry about what to say or whether what you say is right.

It's crazy how this seemed odd at the time, but now is just a normal occurrence.  In this calling I'm often called to pray, set apart, give blessings, etc with zero notice.  As I mentioned earlier, trying hard to be worthy at all times to maintain a connection with the spirit is so important.   It has less to do with "me" and more to do with serving others.   Odd.

[Grunt]

On 5/4/2018 at 6:28 AM, Grunt said:

Melchizedek Priesthood interview.  

I just have a lot of flaws.  I follow “the rules”, but I don’t always think kindly of everyone, regardless how hard I try.  I don’t read scriptures daily.  I’m just not the beat representative, I guess.  

Man, this is still true today.  Does anyone else struggle to love everyone?

[person0]

1 hour ago, Grunt said:

Man, this is still true today.  Does anyone else struggle to love everyone?

You are not alone in this.  It is certainly still true for me.  I would imagine it is rare to find those who have truly mastered this.  I am slowly but surely getting better over time, so I consider that a win.  Still, I find that other driving factors often trump a sincere desire to love everyone.

EDIT:  Also, it is a rarity to find members who study their scriptures every day, or even who do family studies every day.  We do family scripture studies daily, but I still struggle to maintain a habit of daily personal study.

Edited June 19 by person0

[zil2]

2 hours ago, Grunt said:

Does anyone everyone else struggle to love everyone?

Yes.  (Perhaps my opinion is jaded, but, I think we all struggle with this.)

1 hour ago, person0 said:

EDIT:  Also, it is a rarity to find members who study their scriptures every day, or even who do family studies every day.  We do family scripture studies daily, but I still struggle to maintain a habit of daily personal study.

We had a training a couple Thursdays ago with Milton Camargo (1st Counselor in SS GP), and he shared some stats from the seminary program that suggest less than 1/3 of active families are having any form of home scripture study.

I think I've shared it elsewhere, but I'll share it again.  This trio of October 2021 talks changed my life (or were sufficient to cause me to allow the Spirit to change my life):

One Percent Better by E. Dunn (70)

Daily Restoration by E. Uchtdorf

A House of Sequential Order by E. Sikahema (70)

[Carborendum]

I tell people: You don't have to be perfect.  You just need to be on the road to it.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2017/10/be-ye-therefore-perfect-eventually?lang=eng

Edited June 19 by Carborendum

[Vort]

2 hours ago, person0 said:

EDIT:  Also, it is a rarity to find members who study their scriptures every day, or even who do family studies every day.  We do family scripture studies daily, but I still struggle to maintain a habit of daily personal study.

On a related note, Sister Vort and I have had many successes and many failures in our marriage. One of the successes that has helped us in ways both small and great has been our nightly scripture study together, one chapter of scripture every night since we got hitched. We read the Book of Mormon between our May 5 anniversary and the end of the year, and another book of scripture in the first 124* days of a new year. We have only occasionally missed a day, and when we have, we have always made it up**.  No complicated formula; we just trade off reading verses through the particular chapter.

As I said, many blessings both great and small, the greatest of which have been (1) forcing us to participate in a spiritual activity (actually two spiritual activities, scripture reading along with prayer) together, even when we may be harboring some ill feelings toward each other for some stupid reason or another; and (2) giving us regular exposure to scriptures over and over and over and over, until after a few decades, some important aspects of the scriptures—for us, especially of the Book of Mormon—begin to stand out simply from sheer repetition.

* Except for years evenly divisible by four. I'll let you guess how many days we read together from the other book of scripture in those years.

** Except for the period of time last year when I was very sick and hospitalized, when we decided that doing months of makeup reading just was not realistic.

[Grunt]

Sister Grunt gave her first talk.  I love her.

[askandanswer]

15 hours ago, Grunt said:

Sister Grunt gave her first talk.  I love her.

Were you the one who assigned her to speak?

[askandanswer]

On 6/20/2023 at 2:43 AM, Vort said:

** Except for the period of time last year when I was very sick and hospitalized, when we decided that doing months of makeup reading just was not realistic.

@Vortyou surprise me! I didn't think you'd spend any time at all reading about makeup. Is that your feminine side coming out?

[Vort]

16 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

@Vortyou surprise me! I didn't think you'd spend any time at all reading about makeup. Is that your feminine side coming out?

When my children were young, they would ask me to tell them "make-up stories", which of course were stories that I just made up on the spot, silly, funny stories that occasionally including them as characters. A couple of times, I told them a story about lipstick and blush or whatever, and when they started complaining about it, I told them it was a make-up story. They didn't really appreciate the humor until they got maybe seven years old or so. But when they got old enough, they were as entertained by it as their father was.

[Grunt]

8 hours ago, askandanswer said:

Were you the one who assigned her to speak?

I don't assign.  I "invite as the spirit directs me". 😉