Well Hello Everyone!
This week has been a very exciting and important week of my mission. This week was full of life lessons that have changed the way I view missionary work.
I won't go into too much detail because I think the revelation Elder Johnson and I have received this week could make for a great talk one day, but I will tell you how missionary work has changed for me. I have mentioned before how Elder Johnson and I are focusing much more on the member-missionary relationship and doing missionary work through the members. I believe that members are the most effective way to do missionary work and hopefully we will see the fruits of our efforts in meeting with members soon. We had a planning session this week where we really wanted to figure out what we were supposed to be doing. We had this great idea to do member missionary work, but we had no idea how to achieve it and we were lacking the direction we needed.
This week has been a very exciting and important week of my mission. This week was full of life lessons that have changed the way I view missionary work.
I won't go into too much detail because I think the revelation Elder Johnson and I have received this week could make for a great talk one day, but I will tell you how missionary work has changed for me. I have mentioned before how Elder Johnson and I are focusing much more on the member-missionary relationship and doing missionary work through the members. I believe that members are the most effective way to do missionary work and hopefully we will see the fruits of our efforts in meeting with members soon. We had a planning session this week where we really wanted to figure out what we were supposed to be doing. We had this great idea to do member missionary work, but we had no idea how to achieve it and we were lacking the direction we needed.
So after a lot of praying, through the confirmation of the spirit, we have felt that it is important to try and meet with three member families a day, while also getting in at least two hours of finding each day. This also includes visiting with less actives, part member families, and teaching as well. So far we have seen a lot of success from this. Our day is always full because we are always making sure that we are doing something. Elder Johnson and I have both felt great peace as we have focused our efforts 100% on the people of France, especially strengthening the ward. We have already met with less actives, taught lessons, done finding, and met with members this past week and it has been exhilarating. We are doing short, quick visits with the members and less actives. The purpose of the visits is to bring the spirit into the home and inspire the members - it works. We are natural in our approach and we simply share our message and go on our way. We believe that if we uplift the ward and help them develop their spirituality, then the desire to do missionary work will increase and the work will progress. Figuring all of this has taken a while to figure out, but now that we are focused and know we are being guided in our work, we are very excited to work and do our part.
I feel the most important lesson learned from all of this is that you need to focus on those around you. You need to focus on building others up instead of focusing on building yourself up. When you focus on those around you, you naturally build yourself up, as well as increasing the desire within yourself, and those around you, to aid your fellow man. We, as missionaries, are called to preach repentance and baptize converts. I believe helping members, less-actives, and part- member families change and have the desire to help their fellow man is doing just that. We help them focus more on Christ in their life and, as a result, their love increases. Their love and respect for the sacrament increases as they remember him throughout the week. The result is - they become like Him. This truly is a great work we are engaged in!
As for the rest of the week... it was great! We had zone conference and David Archuleta came and sang for his. His testimony was very genuine and you could really feel that he believed in what he shared. I really enjoyed having him speak, and sing, to us! His voice is also WAY good, and I was super impressed! We also were able to hear from Bishop Causse that evening and he spoke of the importance of members bringing their friends to visit the temple - I agreed! That was cool to listen to him speak in his native tongue!
I feel the most important lesson learned from all of this is that you need to focus on those around you. You need to focus on building others up instead of focusing on building yourself up. When you focus on those around you, you naturally build yourself up, as well as increasing the desire within yourself, and those around you, to aid your fellow man. We, as missionaries, are called to preach repentance and baptize converts. I believe helping members, less-actives, and part- member families change and have the desire to help their fellow man is doing just that. We help them focus more on Christ in their life and, as a result, their love increases. Their love and respect for the sacrament increases as they remember him throughout the week. The result is - they become like Him. This truly is a great work we are engaged in!
As for the rest of the week... it was great! We had zone conference and David Archuleta came and sang for his. His testimony was very genuine and you could really feel that he believed in what he shared. I really enjoyed having him speak, and sing, to us! His voice is also WAY good, and I was super impressed! We also were able to hear from Bishop Causse that evening and he spoke of the importance of members bringing their friends to visit the temple - I agreed! That was cool to listen to him speak in his native tongue!
Ok ok ok… what else. Right, so we had asked the Bishop for names of some people to go and visit and one of them was a less active woman. We went and visited her with a member and it turns out she had been in a bad fall this past year. She had fallen and broken both of her legs, I think, and had been in the hospital for six months! Miraculously, she walks just fine now! The sad part about this visit was that nobody visited her in that six months! Luckily the Bishop had stopped by and talked with her and another ward member had brought her a little Christmas tree, that made her very happy. We were glad we could go and visit her; we also found out that she has a 16 year old daughter, so I am going to ask the Young Women to contact her and invite her to church/activities (Totally forgot on Sunday.)
This email is all over the place, but I’ll finish with our great practice teaching with some members last night. We visited the Elder’s Quorum President to teach him the Plan of Salvation. His girlfriend was visiting, I thought she was his wife, so she joined in as well. When we started the both of them said they weren’t married, but I couldn’t tell if they were being serious because they were holding hands and just seemed like a married couple, so I figured it was part of the roleplay. So we taught the lesson, they fixed our french grammar and they really liked the lesson. Afterwards, when we started to eat dinner, I ask them, “So, how long have you two been married?” They both kind of got this look on their face, like “he didn’t get it before,” and then then told me to the sound of laughter from my companion that they really weren’t married! We all laughed over it. They are both very very nice and we had a fun time there.
Sweet, hope everyone’s new year is going well and you are keeping all of your new year resolutions!
Much Love,
Elder Molinari
P.S. I also think this week is an excellent time, if you haven't already, to reflect back on the life of our dear prophet President Monson. Maybe read a few of his talks or what his biography movie. He was truly an amazing man that focused one "the one." I am very grateful for his exmaple to me.
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