May 30

Yesterday was interviews and they held it at our chapel so we had to prep the chapel and I had to conduct the meeting until the zone leaders came, so our preparation day got moved to Tuesday so that's that. I hope no one was maimed yesterday due to this 

I talked with President and Sister Stevens and they both gave me some heavenly advice about leadership, priorities, and some personal advice. President Stevens is probably the most 'real' guy you will ever meet. 

This week I have been studying charity, and there are a few things that I really like about it. The thing about charity is that you can not fully explain it with out faith and hope, they are compound into one. If you focus you attention and efforts on improving one Christ like attribute the others will be effected as well. To summarise what i have been taught this week.  Faith is focused on the past, that Christ truly did suffer for our sins and perform the atonement that through him we can become clean. Hope is focused more on the future, that through our righteous living and faithful obedience of Christs Gospel we will attain exaltation and live with our Father again. Now charity, being the pure love of Christ, is focused on the present; because love can only truly be manifested through our present actions. These past couple of transfers my district has been a little 'righteous' at times. The sister not showing up to district meetings or leaving early and the elders not being as diligent as they could, this gave me a great opportunity to build my charity and therefore my faith and hope . i have learned there are three degrees of charity.

 The first degree of charity, and the lowest, is listening. Listening is probably the most important thing a missionary could do and also in my opinion the least anyone could do for someone else at any given time. Listening shows that you care enough to take in what someone is saying, but more importantly what they are feeling. We learn from elder bednar that listening is more than ears to hear, but eyes to see. some of us see but do not observe, not everything someone is feeling will be expressed in what they say. In preach my gospel it says   People  also  communicate  by the way they sit, their facial expressions, what they do with  their hands, their tone  of voice, and the movements of their eyes. Observe these unspoken messages; they can help   you understand the feelings of those yo u(serve). Also be aware of your own  body language. Send a message of interest and enthusiasm by listening sincerely.

We need to physically show we are listening, this will take effort on our part, but it will let them know that we truly care what they have to say and that their words are not wasted. To further manifest that we are listening we need to ask questions, to engage with them. So instead of someone dumping their emotions at your feet you are now in council with them and reasoning with them on what could and should be done. quoting preach my gospel again in says 

 When you feel that you understand what is being said,  make comments that show you understand, such as “So what you are saying is. Is that right?” or “If I understand, you are feeling that” When you are not sure if you understand, ask the person for clarification.

The second degree of charity is giving.This form of charity is probably the charity we all know quite well through watching the many superhero movies, this is to do service with no intent other than to 'go about doing good'  To quote the talk where i got the degrees of charity from it say's 'The second degree of charity involves the way we give to and seek to serve others. Charity in this sense is often associated with almsgiving, which can easily lead to a distorted understanding of what charity really means. The British have a phrase, “as cold as charity,” which they use to describe the heart and attitude of charity given in a way that is condescending or self-righteous.When we act with genuine charity, we seek to lift others up or to give them a boost, perhaps while we stay below.'  In preach my gospel it says During His mortal ministry, the Savior “took upon him the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7). He went about “doing good” (Acts 10:38) and “preaching the gospel” (Matthew 4:23). As you follow this example, you will find those who will receive you.

Through service, you and those who are prepared for the restored gospel come together in a powerful, inspiring way. Your good works will help people recognize you as a (disciple) of God and will lead to opportunities to (share) the restored gospel. 

The third and celestial degree of glory is to care for and love others; Moroni put it best by stating 47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him. To quote the talk i got these degrees from again it says There seems to be a progression from the easier to the more difficult among the three degrees of charity. We cannot hope to have genuine charity if we are not charitable as listeners and givers. Not surprisingly, cultivating the “pure love of Christ” involves taking steps. We do not simply develop such love instantly; for most of us, it will be a lifelong process. Ultimately, it is a gift of God. 

No matter the amount of goal and plan setting we have attaining charity will be in vain with out Christ atonement to not only giving us the redeeming power to over come our stumbling and failings in the development in our attribute of charity, but also the enabling power to push us through. To keep us going and give us the Hope needed and the power of faith required to develop this the most important attribute needed for exaltation. Because with out charity we are nothing, and we also know that charity never failith. I just want to leave my testimony with you that i know that I am imperfect, I know that i am no where near calling myself even mediocre, but i know that christs atonment will make up the difference. We dont need to be perfect, because that would take away our oppritunities to grow and their is only one who was and is perfect, and we shouted for joy when He accepted His calling as our Saviour and Redeemer. Christ is the reason we are here, why we live the way we live, and why we are able to see our families again. I leave this with you in His name, even jesus christ, amen.

River Grear Ouse

    

May 22, 2017

Spiritual thought: 

This week has been a though week, but it never got me down. 

I went on 3 exchanges this week ( 2 of them outside my area ) to help others and so the zone leaders could help me. I learned a lot from my exchanges and I wanted to share a little bit with you guys. 

I went on exchange with an older missionary who is going home in a few weeks, and he has never really excelled in some of the attributes that come with being a missionary; mainly being outgoing and talking with everyone in sight in hopes that the gospel message might be shared. He is more of a reserved character but very knowledgeable and a very bold teacher. 

So going on exchange with him in hopes I might be able to help him again (this hat been our second exchange and a lot of progression had happened since then, motivation is diminishing though). We had a pretty average day ( if there ever was one on a mission) when it came to the exchange evaluation. Hearing from the prophets that everyone has some specific knowledge that another will not have, I was honestly intrigued on what this missionaries biggest take away was from his mission. Since this was his last district leader exchange he was very open and honest, but before he answered he paused for a while and I could tell he was honestly pondering my heart felt question. He gave his answer more boldly than I would have expected, he said looking me in the eye " on my mission I've always seen people who had many strengths that I wish that I had, but I know that they will never have one thing - and that's my relationship with the Savior". I felt the spirit so strongly when he said that to me. 

It has always been a weakness of mine to look around and compare myself to others, to make final judgments on myself and demand perfection. I have always been my biggest critique. Which I think we all can be. But that was never the point of Jesus Christ's atonement , Jesus Christ was perfect so we didn't have to be. The atonement of Jesus Christ is to be applied to our hearts and minds so that we can become better today than we were yesterday, if that's all we can do that is enough. 

Perfection is a eternal journey, but with any journey it must always start with the first step. With this missionary I went on exchange with it was opening his mouth and talking with people, with me it might be to stop being so critical of myself, for others it might just be as simple as trying a little harder to be a little better. 

Funny moment: 

During zone call ( where the entire zone has a conference call) we were playing a game of what we wanted on this zone pizza. No one was paying attention so I said on my pizza I wanted pepperoni and bleach, and I would say only 4 companionships noticed and laughed the rest were clueless

Testimony building moment:

It was pouring rain and I just missed the bus to go to physical therapy, so I was gutted. But I pulled up my boot straps and talked to maybe not the first person I saw but the second and third and fourth. The Lord was then able to put prepared people in my path and we found people to teach 

My week

  Monday: 

I went on exchange with elder finnurud and we tracted for 2.5 hours while the other elders were at a dinner appointment, we talked pretty deeply about our personal relationship with Jesus Christ and mission culture 

Tuesday: 

We went to district meeting which the sisters decided not to come, that was frustrating. And we went on exchange with the zone leaders, I was with elder sharp and we went spiritual tracting. Praying often and following the spirit. 

Wednesday:

Probably one of the hardest days of the week. Missed my bus to physical therapy and it rained harder than it had in a decade in Bedford. But still being diligent we went out finding and found two new people 

Thursday:

When I went on exchange again with missionaries in my area, found like Dragons 

Friday: 

Non of our plans went through but we still went out and honestly can't remember 

Saturday:

Did weekly planning, a service project to help a Syrian family, and a DA appointment that ended quite abruptly because the service project was more of an old woman calling me and guilt tripping me to come last minute to the chapel to help. She was quite mean, but it was for a good cause 

Sunday:

We had a load of appointments, no one came to church because of various reasons, and call ins 

 

 

May 15, 2017

In summary my week has been full of ups and Downs. But to be honest I
have seen how the goals I have set between the Lord and myself have
really starting to be fulfilled. I really wanted to work on the
spiritual gift of discernment and connecting myself with heaven so
that when I open my mouth the spirit will fill it. I have been
striving to get up around 5:30to read what ever is in the approved
mission library wither it be Sunday school guidebooks or revelations
in context I have felt that as I treasure up the word the spirit fills
my mouth. The spirit speaks to every one differently because everyone
is different. The way I understand mathematical division and the way
others understand mathematical division is different, so if the way we
understand math is so different why would the spirit not also be
understood differently. The way the spirit communicates with me is if
I put diligent effort into preparing to receive it, wither it be
street contacting or spiritual thoughts in call ins it is the same. So
as I study so early in the morning I really get a lot from it. When it
came to missionary work ethic I had the mind set that I would just
wake up in the morning and work out really hard to keep my pre mission
body and leave the mission with the same body I came in with. One
quote came to my mind in my second transfer which was from the
infamous movie star and governor Arnold ( don't know how to spell his
last name) when he was making the transition from body builder to
actor. He explained that he took his original work ethic from 4 hours
at the gym and 2 hours of acting lesson and reversed it to 4 hours
acting lesson and 2 hours at the gym, and that he needed to work on
acting if he was to be an actor and not body building. So I took the
same thought process and applied it to missionary work. 3 hours of
study and 45 minutes of exercise instead of he opposite. I know the
Lord sees this and grants me light as I am obedient to Nephi's
admonition to
"Feast upon the words of Christ", in my eyes a feast takes a lot
longer than an hour of eating. It takes a three courses and taking
times away to digest and coming back for more. When you go to chuck a
Rama you don't go for a 30- 45 minute lunch break ( or at least i
don't), I go to give that owner a run for his money. The same applies
to us, we need to go out and give the adversary a run for his money as
we become more filled with the word of God. But there is a second
part, if we go to chuck a Rama and gorge ourselves over the feast and
then don't exercise and use all that food to energize our bodies in
some way. We will become fat and sluggish, the same applies with us.
If we study the scriptures for longer and longer periods of time and
then do nothing with that knowledge, we will become sluggish and
stagnant in our spiritual progression and become discouraged and stop
reading because we saw no results.
Well this is my small sermon, but I leave these with you in the name
of Jesus Christ amen
Sent from my iPad 

May 9, 2017

Today is P-day because we are in transfers week. The results came in last night, i will be staying in Bedford as district leader and elder cooper will be leaving to become a district leader in white chapel area in London. This is now my third companion to become a district leader after being companions with me; first Elder Kalabanko, then elder draper, now elder cooper. Maybe im just a trainer for future district leaders, who knows. But this week has been quite eventful, we have a few investigators progressing towards baptism. The first and second are the most solid, being a small family from africa. one of the members from our ward is from the same tribe as her so they have fellowshipped her well and now are BFF's, along with this family just moved in and the only people they know are from the church so definitly they will be coming to church. It is a single parent home, with Lidia the mother being the only one there for her three kids, so i have a small window look into how that must be. They need the gospel. The rest of our investigators are a little different, one was now an ex homeless man and he has a strong testimony of jesus christ but he needs some polishing. The next is a man who deals with same sex attraction, and he knows this is the church that will accept him the most. 

This up coming week i will have a few power house missionaries coming into the district. if my district was a dodge ball team, i think pound for pound we would be the strongest. We have elder finurude coming in and he is probably the only person i have literally been really intimidated by. In the MTC i was making some toast and just got done buttering it, and he put his hand on my shoulder and said "i like your toast, may i have it". It was the last piece of toast so i said, "of course not". It was in that moment when everyone gasped and zoomed in to what was going to happen next. He then laughed it of and put his arm around me, and we have been friends ever since. He is going to love his new area, rough and tough bedford district. 

-- 

Benji J. Massey

May 1, 2017

well i forgot my i pad at home so i will have to go off memory for this one. this week was a dozy. ive had two main stuggles this week stemmed from the same problem; first that my district has fallen into a spiritual slummber and the same with my ward. But i have seen many miracles as elder cooper and i have worked faithfully and diligently  Let me explain.

My district especially has been having problems with remembering their purpose as missionaries, they love going out and talking to people but not inviting people unto christ. They have been struggling with home sickness and with obedience, so when i call them on the phone they either dont answer, or if they do they really dont talk to me more just give me lip service. i went on exchange with one of the elders and during the evaluation i was bold and asked him why he had been coasting on the lords time, which led to an interesting conversation and thankfully our improvement. The sisters are a different story, they have been rationalizing everything they have been stuggling with. Which stops progression. I called the STL's to council with them and they asked me to do something ive never wanted to do for the sisters, they told be to chastise and reprove them with love. I can reprove elder's alright, but women in general i just dont like telling off. So i just had to buckle up and do it, and let me tell you it broke my heart for every second of it. i cant tell you how bad it hurt when i had to be bold with them. But it was taken well and improvement is on its way. 

My ward is more like a branch, about 85% of the ward is less active; And most live within about 5 miles of the church. so a lot of less active work to do, but the active members are mostly the issue with spirituality. We were talking about it in the ward council on how we can get members more active in the church, because most dont even answer questions in sunday school class. Its mostly just the elders answering because we dont want it to be awkward for our investigators. 

elder cooper and i have been finding like dragons, and we have been teaching a small family from africa. Lydia, Joel, syrial, and a baby girl who's name i cant spell.  Lydia is a single mother, and is stuck in the house with all her small children. They are all from Ghana, and we found her tracting in the thick of the rain. But this week has been the sweetest teaching them. we had a family scripture study with them, and little syrial and i read the book of mormon word by word together. That was the most spirtual lesson i had. The real big miracle is that some one from our ward, sister aquah, is from the same village and tribe as lydia so the speak twee together when they get together. i ask that you pray for this small family that they might progress. 

Funny moments:

Yesterday we were tracting and we were knocking on this door and we saw that people were in so we knocked and knocked and knocked. a tall man then answered and then said "i didnt answer because i wasnt interested" elder cooper then retorted "do you know who we are?" and he replied "no". he explained that we are representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ and then i asked how could you not open you door because you already knew you werent interested. That guy walked away with at least the knowledge that we literally did everything we could to get a book of mormon in that house. It is also a perfect summary of what english people are like. 

Miracles:

Elder cooper and i were tracting in heavy rain pour, on the edge of a second baptism ourselves and in sore need of a change of dry cloths. But we kept at it, and knocked a door next to a widow in our ward we just got done visiting. We were just knocking and when they opened the door we would share the prince of peace video, and this person opened the door and watched 30 seconds of it and yelled at us. She then looked at us and her heart was softened as she saw two drenched young men talking about christ in the rain. She took pitty on us invited us in and we taught her and her small family. That was lydia's family

 

    

April 24, 2017

I'm sorry you might get these emails on Tuesday, I wasn't around wifi
all day. But I send them anyways.
Sunday I think was the first day I got home sick in my life.  I
thought to myself I haven't talked to my mom in a while, and I haven't
seen her in a while, I actually got quite emotional about it. I don't
know what that means but I'm fine.
My district is t doing well, I'm doing almost everything in my power
to show love but also be firm. No one seems to listen. The elders took
a good old cat nap after church on Sunday and then went to a DA
appointment and wasted a day. The sisters strolled into their flat at
9:45 pm last night so I don't know what's up with that.
My companion and I are super tight, he loves Jacobs humor. Tell Jacob
to email me
I've learned to love the small things in life, I wish I cared more
about family in high school. I wouldn't have left the house with out
you guys.
My ward is probably the most dysfunctional ward I've ever been to, to
be honest I don't think the Lord will allow baptisms in this ward
because they don't even take care of the ones they have now.
I spent some of my birthday money on magic cards, sorry about that one
but my zone plays a lot of magic.
Be sure to take care or max mora for me, I love him like he is my own son.
I miss you mom, and I miss your bed. I will be back in a year or two


Sent from my iPad

April 10, 2017

short story long:

Wednesday

Exchanges in the London mission happen Wednesday morning from 9:45-10am. Quick in and out situation, my companion and i got seperated getting onto the Piccadilly line and we had to get off at Green Park. i thought he knew that, so i got off and he didnt. so i just went to Euston Station by myself with my one bag (Elder Draper had my other one). so i get there and my new companion elder cooper is already there for me, but i cant leave because i do not have my other bag. so we end up waiting for a while until elder draper gets there. we head up to bedford,and get there early afternoon. i just throw down my bags and we go shopping at Aldi around the corner, it was awesome to have some decently priced food. London is way expensive! we end up making a transfer vision first thing. We then head out to a dinner appointment, and we had a few moments to find. we walk up to this biker and he lets me take a few pictures on his Harley, and then we get talking about the restored gospel. He told us he believes in the great apostasy, so we gave him a pamphlet and set a return appointment and got in our members car and went and ate dinner at the Waltons. funny family. 

Thursday 

we woke up early and ran for a few miles. Bedford is a beautiful town, but the people in it are just a little ruff around the edges. We then got ready for the day and headed off to district meeting, my district is made up of 3 companionships. Sister Lannan and sister carr or the sisters of thunder, sister Lannan is in my group; elder mauerhan and elder sailsbury, and elder mauerhan is in my group as well. we started off district meeting all right, my companion elder cooper reminds me of jacob and his quick wit. But jacob is quicker off with his jokes than elder cooper. anyways elder cooper just threw some shade and roasted some people. i tried to keep the mood light. but the sisters really didnt have any good energy to input. they actually got up and left twice for 20 minutes, so that was really weird. then in district council sister lannan straight up told me she didnt care about the goals. I laughed out loud just because she was so blatantly saying she didnt want to do missionary work, probably not the best reaction but i thought it was hilarious. 

Friday 

We had weekly planning to get everything down, we found a little bit. After we had to go to a dinner appointment to a very active elderly couple. Their relationship reminded me of Ren and Lani's in Lani taking care of Ren. But Dale has had brain damage, but still is pretty quick; he is completly functioning and owns his own buisness, but he just goes off on interesting sermons. His wife i think wants me to marry their grand daughter, and showed me a bunch of pictures of her (she is on her mission currently in Greece, she not to bad looking). But it was fun to here their testimonies and leave them ours. 

Saturday

this was the weirdest day of my life. we had an appointment with Mark, he showed up an hour late so we ate lunch in the mean time, he brought 2 friends and we tried to teach them. but they were not having it, and wanted to tell motorcycle stories. After words, we taught mark a little bit. He went off about how Polish people aren't eastern european but are actually the georgraphical center of europe. we ended up just giving him a book of mormon and inviting him to church. Then we went to go see one of our friends who is progressing to baptism. we talked to this mother and daughter ( her daughter is 25, but is a selective mute and is engaged. i dont understand how that all mixes together). but we set a return appointment with them. We went to knock on the door of Deb, and her boyfriend talked to us from the upstairs window and said she wasnt home. even though we clearly saw her through the window. he was kind of snarky, and annoyed us. but we left the treats we bought for them at the door with a note. we then headed back on the bus, and went home. when we got off at our stop we got some wifi at a bank, and a guy turned the corner and came up and started swearing at us for being mormon. I just ignored him, because to be honest i was fed up with english people so i just stood there and was finishing up my business on my ipad. He told me to walk away, but he walked up to me, so me being prideful i just stood there. Then the most unexpected thing happened, this brit hit me with his cane. i was more surprised that a british person was willing to actually do something physical more than him actually hitting me, so i looked up at him and told him to leave. and i think his son came and got him but nothing really happened. My companion was more angry than i was. 

Sunday

this was an interesting day, no one was at church 15 minutes before church. not even the bishop, so i was a little disappointing by that. i basically am in a branch, our meeting house is a renovated Bar. the ward is lovely, but they arent really proactive in missionary work or in up keep of their meeting house. They are lovely people though, really friendly. we went and hunted down LA and tracked, it was really fun. 

-- 

Benji J. Massey