Hey family, things have gone well this past week. I went to the
Tulsa Zoo today with the elders here in Tulsa. So I have some pictures of
that as well as a picture that was taken at a marriage this week end. One of
the Riverside elders had one of the couples they are teaching get married on
Saturday.
We just finished week five and we are now on week six of this
transfer. The next transfer starts on April 26; which will bring me back to
week number one of the next transfer. It's been decided that I get to stick
around here in Tulsa a little longer. I will be Elder Hancock's last
companion that he will ever serve with here in the Oklahoma Tulsa Mission. I
am excited for the next six weeks. Elder Hancock and I have some big plans
for the mission; our goal is to get the missionaries to regain the
missionary spirit that they have once had by helping them live the
principles of personal sacrifice and obedience. The mission has a lot of
faith and it's now time to test that faith.
I have really been working on charity and honesty this past
transfer. I have worked on charity before but after I heard a talk given by
Elder Holland and after reading some scriptures I wanted to come to a deeper
understanding about what it means to have charity. The scripture that got me
interested in charity again is Moroni 7: 44 "if a man be meek and lowly in
heart, and <http://scriptures.lds.org/en/moro/7/44d> confesses by the power
of the Holy Ghost that Jesus is the Christ, he must needs have charity; for
if he have not charity he is nothing; wherefore he must needs have charity."
Basically what I get out of this verse is that I need charity in order to
testify of Christ. Paul explains more in 1 Cor 13; that a man without
charity is nothing, even if he has faith to move mountains. So, I am working
on making sure that I have charity. Charity runs deeper than merely saying
and thinking that you love someone.
I learned something this week while teaching Amy. When I teach
something to someone about a principle of the gospel I have learned that if
I can first teach myself that principle and get myself to understand it then
I am more likely to teach it to someone else in order for them to understand
it. I tell you this so that my next few comments make sense. While in a
lesson with Amy on Saturday, we tried to teach her about the importance of
the family. We were reading with her "The Family : A Proclamation to the
World" and explained things paragraph by paragraph till we came to the
paragraph that reads, "Successful marriages and families are established and
maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect,
love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities." I began to
teach myself what this sentence taught quickly so that I could explain it to
Amy. What I learned while teaching myself and then later teaching Amy was an
answer to my prayers. So in fine, what I learned was that I have
inadvertently lived these principles with in my own companionship with Elder
Hancock these past five months. Normally missionaries can build a
relationship really quickly through finding commonalities in things like
music, sports, or interests; but with Elder Hancock and I you couldn't have
miss-matched a companionship any more. So, we have strived to get along
through faith, prayer repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion,
work and wholesome recreational activities. I could go through each one of
those principles describing and illustrating how we have tried to live them
but that could take a long time; but we have lived them. I haven't had a
companion this long before, and it's really helped me come to understand
things about life and relationships. My whole mission has been sheltering me
from these lessons, with all my prior companions I was only with them for
two months or less, but now having to serve with one for six months has
taught me some of the most important things that God has had in store to
teach me while on my mission. It never ceases to amaze me how God works. If
I can conquer this companionship through these principles then I can conquer
any companionship, or relationship.
Church on Sunday runs from 9:00 am to 4:00pm, we go to two
wards. What if I were to call around 7:00 my time? That's not a for sure
time yet because we don't know our dinner schedule yet, but I would most
likely be calling you anytime from four to six your time. Hopefully that can
give us an idea of call timing.
Well that's all for this week. Thank you for all that you are
doing!
Love
Elder Kelly Conrad
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