Elder Dailen Brown's Mission Blog: Anguishing desperation brings us to desperately ask, seek and knock!

No serious blessings from the fast yet, but I am sure they will come! This week was pretty good. Although we struggled a lot with people who were uncommitted and others who didn't keep their appointments, the lessons we did have were very good.

I felt the spirit more this week, and although we didn't seem to have success with what we had planned to do, I really felt that God was pleased with our efforts. This was a huge help for me, and I am striving to be a successful missionary as defined in Preach My Gospel, and not let other peoples decisions influence my motivation to work diligently.

We had some very successful lessons with some of our investigators who haven't seemed committed. We have started to be a lot more bold, and have done it more out of love as well. All of the people we teach know our purpose very well, and many of them have dropped us because they do not wish to go further now that they understand that we are not there just to chat or to be good company, but that we are here to help them find the truth and change their lives.

Those who have decided to continue meeting however, have shown greater commitment, and are becoming more comfortable with prayer. I just hope we can find a few more people to teach this week, because we currently have very few appointments set. We will really be walking by faith!

The other elders are doing well. They are struggling with their teaching pool too, but they definitely haven't lost faith, and their teaching abilities have improved a lot. I can really see the growth in everyone's love for the people and their desire for their eternal welfare.

The following is an extract from President Millar's weekly letter to the mission, Elder Russell M. Nelson and his wife both talked at a recent Mission Training Center President’s training seminar. Sister Wendy Nelson made this comment that I think some of you have heard and is applicable to us in the England London South Mission:

"My dear elders and sisters, I pray that on your mission you will have many moments of complete and overwhelming and even anguishing desperation. Why? Because then, and only then, will you desperately ask, desperately seek, and desperately knock. Then, and only then, will you find the courage and determination to follow through with exactness everything the Lord needs you to do in order to serve a valiant, vibrant, worthy, and very successful mission for Him."

This quote seems to be very applicable to our area right now, I don't know fully about everyone else, but I am having exactly that, an "overwhelming and even anguishing desperation." I just hope that I can follow with determination without getting discouraged. I hope and pray that the refiners fire doesn't burn me, but rather shapes me. This whole experience is most likely a big answer to prayer. I have asked a number of times (a lot in my last area) for Heavenly Father to help me be more bold, and now, I have no fear in telling people they need to change, because I really do care about what happens to them. I really do care about their eternal welfare. This is my work and my glory, to be an instrument in the Lord's hand to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. I truly feel sorrow for the sins of the world, it saddens me to see so many who "know not the workings of the God who hast created them."

I have never taught investigators through hymns, but we have used them to bring the spirit in (more often with members) and we do sometimes quote parts of them in lessons. The hymns teach a lot, and it is funny when you think about what some of them say, which people don't get offended by, but just think about these lyrics, "so wake up and do something more than dream of you mansions above." It's like saying "wake up you lazy wasters and do something nice for a change", but because it is put to a nice song, people don't get offended. Music is wonderful!