Dear Elders and Sisters,
This has been a great week for me. I had the opportunity to spend
time proselyting with some of our missionaries. It was great to learn from them
and experience the joy of teaching and testifying of Christ in a more up close
and personal way. I am so grateful for your courage, dedication, faith and
skill. As I observe you in action, I am better able to appreciate the great
work that you do and also the areas in which we can improve.
One of the things that really helped me this week was more
careful management of my time and schedule. Time is something of which we all
have a limited supply. As we carefully prioritize and set goals, we will
accomplish more and resist the temptation to put things off. We should
continually evaluate all that we do by whether or not it helps us accomplish
our missionary purpose of inviting others to come unto Christ by helping them
receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement,
repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the
end. Our goals and plans should continually be focused on these important
aspects of the doctrine of Christ.
In Preach My Gospel we learn that accountability is a
fundamental part of Heavenly Father’s plan for His children. We will all stand
before the Lord and account for what we have done with the opportunities He has
given us. As you serve your mission, you can learn much about accountability
that will benefit you throughout your life. As we feel an appropriate sense of
accountability, we will be more motivated to do our very best each day. We
should never use guilt to motivate ourselves or anyone else. The Savior did not
use guilt to accomplish anything that He did. There are many instances when he
“reproved… with sharpness” (D&C 121:43) but he was never manipulative or
improperly motivated.
I was struck by something that I read in PMG this week as I
was reviewing Chapter 8. “The quality of your personal and companionship study
will improve your ability to teach by the Spirit…”(pg. 139). If we are
earnestly striving to accomplish our missionary purpose, we should welcome
every opportunity to improve what we are doing. I sometimes hear of
missionaries who do not have effective personal and/or companionship study.
When Elder Holland said that missionaries make or break their missions in the
first few hours of every day, he was talking about personal and companionship
study. If you need to repent and improve the manner in which you use your study
time each day, I urge you to do so now. Do not delay!
A missionary recently wrote to me, “I'm always uplifted
during companionship study when we share what we learned in personal study. I
love the fact that we as a companionship have some time to discuss our own
spiritual knowledge with each other and, in turn, build upon what we have
learned. Every time we have a good spiritual discussion together I feel our
unity growing just a little. Working, and sweating together as well as learning
and listening to each other, I feel, brings us closer to the purity of
discipleship.”
It is my prayer that we are all striving to experience the
“purity of discipleship” as we go about our work each day. We are not merely
trying to keep busy. We are disciples of Christ and
servants of the living God, focusing on our missionary purpose to build the
Lord’s kingdom on earth.
President Blickenstaff
Mentor of Pure Disciples of Christ
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