On Thursday we met a very interesting man who was trying to Bible bash us but apparently he has not read Paul's epistle to the Hebrews. He is part of a religion who call themselves "Israelites", they believe Christ is the Son of God but they think it is still necessary to obey the law of Moses, that is to say they still perform burnt offerings. They also believe in a prophet from here in Peru. There are quite a few of them here in Pativilca.
Anyway, on Wednesday we had the meeting with Elder Bednar! Our mission president told us to be extremely reverent, that we should not approach him unless invited and if we were to be invited to do so, to be extremely cordial and so that means no selfies or shaking hands. Once Elder Bednar stood up and began talking the first thing he said was not to take notes of what he says. He said that when we do take notes in meetings to take them like the small plates not the large plates with a "secular history of the meeting" and that they must be notes of what was not said, but only the impressions of the Spirit. He then began to ask inspired questions about the talks by him we were asked to study beforehand, then switched to inspired questions about his manner of asking inspired questions and making sure that those he is teaching are agents unto themselves and active participants in the learning process. He then switched it up and had us ask him questions with a preface explaining how the questions must be very specific to the time, place, and person. The first question then asked was such that it didn't require specifically Elder Bednar to answer it therefore he asked Elder Waddell of the 70 (who was also there) to answer it. One of the better questions had to do with what worried him most in what he can see with his time and experience as an apostle and he answered with the word "steadfastness." He then explained... with the example of how everyone wants to know when a new temple is being built... when they start construction people are coming and taking pictures with their family outside the temple every week and when it is finally dedicated they are sure to be the first ones there on the Tuesday when it opens. He went on to say that there is a huge excitement about going to the temple.. for a while. He then said get yourself a cheap paperback copy of The Book of Mormon and read the whole thing through studying very carefully, and every time you see any variation of the word steadfastness take copious notes. Then after finishing The Book of Mormon write a 1 page summary of steadiness based on your notes. Write on the spine of the book " steadfastness 1" and put the summary inside and put in a bookshelf. Do it again. " Steadfastness 2", without ever taking a glance at your notes from the first time. He said to just keep going with that same thing over and over. He said that he has a bookshelf filled with copies of The Book of Mormon like that and his children have asked him a thousand times if they can read them and he says "if you touch them I will kill you" and they ask if they can have them when he's dead and he says "with my last dying breath I will burn every last one of those books and you will never touch them" because "they can't get anything from what I received from the spirit, but I will get them a book shelf and some copies of The Book of Mormon"
He also said "Would you like to know what Christ would say matters to most to Him?" and then said to study the Gospels paying close attention to every time that He says "my hour is near at hand" (which means "I'm going to die soon") and pay attention to what He teaches next because obviously that is going to be what is most important. He then explained that in the New Testament the first thing he does after that is institute the ordinance of the sacrament and that in 3rd Nephi he gives the authority and teaches the the manner of baptism. He resumed it saying that if we asked Christ what matters to him he'd say "ordinances matter to me" so obviously your work in the temple is extremely important mom!
love you. chao
To his dad:
It looks like a really nice house that Devin and Diana bought, that's really good. I'm glad to hear you had a good birthday. It sounds like a fun setup for the youth, meeting with Canyon Springs ward! Yes, I definitely think I'll be going next week. (transfers)
gracias por todo les amo chao
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