Mission Letter 1-7-13
Dear missionaries,
What a joy it is to have the
opportunity to be on a mission right now, right here in the California Santa
Rosa mission. Over the last 6 months,
Sister Alba and I have had the great privilege of getting to know you
better. We love each and every one of
you and only want the very best for each of you.
Each of us has accepted a
call from the Lord through his living prophet, Thomas S. Monson whom I sustain
and love. Each of us accepted a call
from God to serve here in the California Santa Rosa mission for a specific
period of time, each of us, including Sister Alba and I signed a letter of
acceptance to serve the Lord. I was
called to preside and Kathie was called as my companion in this important
undertaking.
In our call letter, it reads:
“In this assignment as
mission president, Elder Alba will be fully responsible for the supervision of
the mission and will be expected to direct all of its affairs according to the
instructions of the First Presidency.
The missionaries assigned to labor under your presidency will rely upon
you for assignments, for guidance, and for motivation to put forth their best
efforts. In measure, they are entrusted
to your custody. They will need and
deserve your understanding and sympathetic counsel. Becoming close to them is an essential
element of your leadership.
“We pray that our Heavenly
Father will bless and sustain you by the power of His Holy Spirit so that you
may be abundantly qualified to discharge all the duties devolving upon you to
His honor and glory. We pray also that
through the diligent, harmonious, and united labors of you and your associates,
the Saints may be blessed and strengthened and many others brought to a
knowledge of the truth.”
Signed by The First Presidency.
I fear Elders and Sisters
that we are not putting forth our best efforts.
A lot of you are doing wonderful and amazing things and you are seeing
miracles to the point that you are bringing souls to the gates that will allow
them to enter through them to Eternal Life.
There are also others that are not doing what we have been called to
do. We are allowing our pride and
desires to serve time to the point that we are molding the mission to our own
selfish and prideful desires rather than allowing our mission and in this case
the Savior to mold us to what we must become so that we can serve him. Many of us are not truly doing what we are
supposed to be doing.
After much prayer, pondering
and wrestling with the Lord and with the advise of my wonderful companion, we
want to be exactly obedient and will set forth what I feel is what the Lord
expects of us – Standards of Missionary Conduct. You will hear about these in your zone
meetings on Tuesday and a list of expectations will be given to each of you.
Here is what I ask of you:
1.
Be like Nephi and
inquire of the Lord if these standards (by the way, they are not new but they
will be in place for us to be exactly obedient to them) are what He wants us to
obey. Before you begin to dispute these
things, ponder the following – This is Nephi speaking (1 Nephi 15:6-11)
6 And
it came to pass that after I had received astrength I spake
unto my brethren, desiring to know of them the cause of their disputations.
7 And
they said: Behold, we cannot understand the words which our father hath spoken
concerning the natural branches of the aolive tree, and
also concerning the Gentiles.
8 And
I said unto them: Have ye ainquired of the
Lord?
9 And
they said unto me: aWe have not; for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto
us.
10 Behold,
I said unto them: How is it that ye do not keep the commandments of the Lord?
How is it that ye will aperish, because
of the hardness of your hearts?
11 Do
ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said?—If ye will not harden your
hearts, and aask me in bfaith, believing that ye shall
receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall
be made known unto you.
So I ask that you don’t harden your hearts but ask God in faith,
believing that each of us will receive, with diligence in keeping his commandments – then these things will be
made known unto all of us.
2.
I ask that all of us purify ourselves from things that
are holding us back from being valiant servants of the Lord. Put all things that are NOT conducive to
faithful, valiant missionaries on the altar of the Lord and let him consume
them.
I ask each of
you to follow this admonition given to us by Helaman in Helaman 3:33-35.
33 And
in the fifty and first year of the reign of the judges there was peace also,
save it were the pride which began to enter into the church—not into the church
of God, but into the hearts of the
people who aprofessed to belong to the church of God—
34 And
they were lifted up in apride, even to the persecution of
many of their brethren. Now this was a great evil, which did cause the more
humble part of the people to suffer great persecutions, and to wade through
much affliction.
35 Nevertheless
they did afast and bpray oft, and did wax stronger
and stronger in their chumility, and
firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy
and consolation, yea, even to the dpurifying and the esanctification of their
hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their fyielding their
hearts unto God.
Many of us have not been
teaching the younger missionaries how to conduct ourselves to be the most
valiant, most obedient and most deserving missionaries of the Lord. This needs to change!
This is why a list of
standards and expectations will be given to each of you so that there will NOT
be any question as to what type of missionaries we are and can become. There have been “cultures” and “falsehoods”
introduced in our behavior that are priest crafts and will not be allowed to
start or continue from now on. There is
much rationalizing as to why these falsehoods are acceptable – this will also
stop. If any of you are not willing to
completely obey and accepts these, be mature enough to come and see me and I
will make arrangements for you to practice these things back home – again,
there is no room for such behavior as servants of God.
We all need to repent so:
3.
Start now – spend
part of your Preparation day to purge and purify your belongings and I ask that
you go and bury deeply all things that are not conducive to the direction of
the Spirit. Do as the people of Ammon
did (Alma 23:6-7)
6 And
as sure as the Lord liveth, so sure as many as believed, or as many as were
brought to the knowledge of the truth, through the preaching of Ammon and his
brethren, according to the spirit of revelation and of prophecy, and the power
of God working amiracles in them—yea, I say unto you, as the Lord liveth, as
many of the Lamanites as believed in their preaching, and were bconverted unto the
Lord, cnever did fall away.
7 For
they became a righteous people; they did lay down the weapons of their
rebellion, that they did not fight against God any more, neither against any of
their brethren.
My fellow servants of God, we can do this and I ask for
your sustaining me as your mission president and all the mission leaders in
this endeavor. As we do this, I promise
that there will be absolutely nothing that can be denied us by God. We will see miracles and thousands will come
and join our ranks. Join us in this
incredible journey that will allow us to have a mighty change of heart. It can be done!
After we purify and purge ourselves, I invite us all to
lengthen our stride, quicken our pace and to go forth with power to keep the
commandments of God. They will bring
innumerable blessings – the greatest of which is our assurance in the Kingdom
of God with our families. What greater
gift there is I know of none. Imagine –
to be heirs of all that God has and will have are promised to us all who are
willing to humble and purify ourselves.
Surely as we do this, we will be highly favored of the
Lord and His hand will be in all that we do.
We cannot go wrong, we cannot fail and we will have joy.
Know that I love you and this is why I ask you to do
these things so that we can completely enjoy His love.
Love,
President Alba
