#7 Buda: Temple Power

This week was honestly a harder one for me. We did get a lot of office work done, unfortunately some of it bleed over into Saturday, but I think we are in a good place for the rest of the transfer. On P-day we went to the natural history museum, which was my second time there, the last time was with Elder Gable. This week our office work was mostly related to the transfers but I made stationary and a business card for President Hettinger which was new. We picked up a Romanian missionary from the train station because he is going home. We went to pick up Elder Seely who is being transferred, but it was great to see him because he was a former companion of mine, and once again we got to see the missionaries who are going home this transfer.

This is my world now. My desk in the office.

This week we had some good experiences streeting and using new questions, and we got 2 new investigators from it and a handful of good potential investigators. One of them is an older man named Victor, and the other one is a woman Ava who had been living with her husband in Scotland but they have moved back.

We found a new investigator a week or so ago, he is from English class. He has a very interesting religious background, he is a "universal spiritualist," and he was interested in learning more about what makes us different from other Christians. So far in the last week he has read the introduction to the book of Mormon, we taught him the restoration, and he came to church with us. He has some interesting concerns, mainly about absolute truth and free will, but we plan on teaching him the plan of salvation this week, and we are bringing a member with us. That is something we are repenting on, using members more, we have been horrible at it, but this week so far we have 3 lessons scheduled with a member present, so we hope they go through. We are also working through the ward counsel and we go a big list of recommendations for members to reach out to to reactivate them, now that we have some direction. I hope it will be easier to get that rough stone rolling. 

This is my view from my office

On Friday after our office meeting I went to stay with Elder McCann because he was sick, so everyone else could do district meeting. Elder Udy and Elder Fales did district meeting and other meetings. We went to look at an apartment with one of the senior couples and then they took us out for burgers and it was the best burger I've had on my mission.

On Sunday the Brother and Sister Warner, a senior couple who were in the MTC branch presidency, they were super cool. Brother Warner served his mission in Austria when he was 19, anyway, they came to go to the Rome temple open house and they were spending time in Europe and while they were traveling they decided to come to Buda to come see us. We are going to dinner with them today.

Brother and Sister Warner texted this picture to my parents. It was fun to see them.

Update on Tania, she came to church yesterday and said that the morning after we gave her a blessing, she felt completely better, she was a little horse it was a miracle. Yesterday she gave a powerful testimony in sacrament meeting on the power of the priesthood in her life. I really look up to active temple endowed members in Europe, the elect. I think it's all to easy for members not to take the step towards the temple. I hope the other members look up to the endowed members as I do.

With that in mind, I finished listening to "The Saints" this week and it made me reflect a lot on the endowment of power that I received in the Lord's holy temple in Saint George almost 2 years ago now. I can't say that I completely understand the endowment but I marveled at the urgency that the prophet Joseph, and President Young had following Joseph's death, related to building of temples. Building the Kirtland temple was a HUGE sacrifice, and then the Nauvoo temple was also a extraordinary sacrifice for the saints, but the prophets understood how important the temple ordinances were for the saints to receive added levels of spiritual power from on high. Joseph's sense of urgency seemed to be his understanding of how necessary this power would be for the church to continue after his death. Brigham Young had a similar sense of urgency for the saints to receive this power before beginning their journey to the west knowing how important it would be for them to survive their trials. I've thought a lot about the sacrifice that my ancestors gave to build up Zion and the temples. While they didn't know exactly what they would receive, they knew that they wanted it. I hope after my mission, when I have the privilege to go to the temple that I will make it a priority, and gain a similar sense of urgency of being a temple going person in a temple building people. I miss the temple.

Elder Morgan