July 30, 2011

Answers to questions: The mission President has two councilors that are both here from Chile I believe. They don’t work with us very much. I have only seen them a few times during my whole mission. Just Elder Whitney and I are his assistants. We consider ourselves more blessed than anything having the contact and relationship that we do with President Laycock. He is really something else. We have about 140 missionaries more or less at any given time. This next week we are going to have to plan a lot for picking them up who are coming, dropping those off who will be going and preparing the meetings for both. It is a lot of work and planning. I’m learning a little bit more each week about the importance and effectiveness of planning.

(Josh) I bet studying with you would be really fun, like the study we had with President Laycock in his house this last week. It was him and 8 of us; 4 Zone leaders, 2 Office Elders and us. It was incredible. We studied Isaiah 42,49,50,52, and the "grand daddy" 53. After that session, I felt like I knew the Savior much much better. It was beautiful. I can only imagine being able to have a study like that daily. WOW! I have been studying the Book of Mormon again with the topic of LOVE. I am marking all the examples that Heavenly Father shows love to us and how we show love to him. I have found so far that the majority of all He does to show His love is by "Visiting and Communicating with us". That was a deep insight to me. I want to start studying Isaiah more. After that study, it was easy to realize why Nefi loved to teach from Isaiah because it brought people to the Savior. I never understood how before. EX. that he showed us. Isaiah 42:1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. 2 He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. 3 A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.Specifically, vs three is one that we would usually read and jump and just hope to get to the end so that we can finish....The verses talk about the Savior and he shall not break a bruised reed. Reeds are very soft, hollow, blow over with the wind (president explained). His ministry will be as such not big booming, not even to break a bruised reed (he told people not to tell others that he healed them) His ministry was very calm and quiet. The smoking flax (candle light olden days) will not be put out. That could be why we don’t have nearly any of his years before what we do have. It was that quiet and it was prophesied to be so. (These are many of his words, mixed with some of my thoughts....not for sure doctrine). From those verses, I think about how he must have treated people, how he worked with them. So tender and loving. One verse that I may never had thought would help me came to life. I loved it. It was like we took a trip back through time.