So we drove up Thursday afternoon to get to Port Hedland around 3:00. Before driving up, the APs called me and asked if I could give a 20 minute training on Friday on A Successful Missionary from pg. 10 of Preach My Gospel. So that gave me less than 24 hours notice to prepare 20 minutes of training. So I was pretty stressed about that, because Thursday night was definitely busy. We went to go see Monique and her husband who have moved to Port Hedland. It was good to see them, and it was probably the last time I'm ever going to see them. They're a really great couple. That was after we picked the APs up from the airport and dropped them off at Port Hedland's flat. While we were there, Elder Keers, one of the Port Hedland elders called me up and asked if I could come do a baptismal interview for them at 7 for a 12 year old kid that they were going to be baptising on Saturday. It was good getting to do a baptismal interview again, it's been awhile since I got to do one of those, being up here, usually the Branch President usually does it, but since I just happened to be there, they asked me to do it. It was great. But that made us not get back until 8pm, and that's when I started to prepare my training for out meeting that would be starting at 9:30 the next day.
The meeting was potentially the best meeting I've been to in a long time. Haha, it's the only meeting I've been to in a long time. But it was definitely great. President and Sister Cahoon arrived just before the meeting started and came straight to the chapel from the airport. It's just so good to be in their presence. Sad that that will be my last time to be in their presence until just before I go home. 39 days left and they're all going to be sent in Karratha. I think I'm the only one out of our 13 person intake (very large) that is going to be finishing outside of the city. Exiled! Well anyways, the meeting was all about Teaching People, Not Lessons for the first half and the second half was all about the apostasy and also my training. President Cahoon prepared an awesome PowerPoint all about the Apostasy with heaps of information in it. He went through it so fast though that I'll definitely need to make sure I get a copy of it before I go home. I was trying to write everything down, but there's just so much information. Some of it was quite amazing. There's heaps to learn about it. Apparently Elder Callister has a really good book, another one that I need to read when I get home, called the Inevitable Apostasy. And I think that is where President got all of his information. The training that I gave actually ended up being pretty good. I think the Lord helped me out since I only had hardly any time to prepare. By the time I got up to give it though, it was already past the time we were meant to finish, so I thought that was good, I could just give a little 5 minute training and not have to feel guilty about it being too short. However, when I got going, it was hard to keep it under 30 minutes. It's amazing how the spirit works. I don't even really remember half the things that I talked about or said, but I know that it was long enough and that it was definitely spiritually uplifting. I think especially for the young missionaries that were there, they definitely got a lot about it. I spoke about exact obedience and Christ like attributes and how having those two things will pretty much make us be successful. Oh and one more thing from the meeting, we had to give a 3 minute talk. That's the one where everybody has to prepare something and then president picks 3 people to give it at the end of the first half before lunch. We've been doing them in meetings for nearly 10 months now, so I'm sure I've talked about it before. Anyways, this month's topic was Jacob chapter 5, the allegory of the olive tree. Lucky me, I got picked to give my 3 minute talk as well. I spoke about the phrase that comes from verse 50, "spare it a little longer". Elder Nichols spoke about all the references to the Atonement in the chapter, which I found to be amazing. I never really noticed how it talks about the atonement, but in verse 31 it says how the Lord of the Vineyard has tasted every fruit. And also in verse 41, he says "what could I have done more for my vineyard". When you think about those in terms of the Atonement, it's really quite humbling. I gained a lot of really good insight about that chapter though, it's become one of my favourites.
So Saturday morning President and Sister Cahoon took us out to breakfast before the Broome Elders had to catch their bus back to Broome, and then I said goodbye to them until I see them again down in Perth probably on November 10th or something like that. We helped the Hedland elders out with a big service project, which we also got a feed out of, then we drove back to Karratha, but stopped in Roebourne for a dinner appointment first. By the end of the day, I felt like if I blinked, I'd fall asleep. We didn't get much sleep over the 2 nights because we hardly get to see other elders so we got to do a lot of catching up with them. Then the service activity and the driving, and the waking up early to get 8 elders showered on time. Man, it was a great weekend.
Well, just under 6 weeks left now. I'm looking forward to seeing ALL of you! I'll catch yous up, aye?
Love,
Elder Tanner
No comments:
Post a Comment