Another hectic week, so let's jump right in!
TRANSFER CALLS!!! Elder Grant will be staying in Prairiewood and taking over as Zone Leader. I will be transferred to Bankstown! Which is basically Lebanon on the streets and Tonga in the chapel. Time to brush up on my Arabic... it's been awhile, wish me luck... I will be a District Leader AND..... *drum roll*..... TRAINING!!! I will have a son!! (anyone who trains a new missionary is what we call a "mom" or "dad"). So word from my old companion, Elder Scott, is that our mission president called him asking him where all the Korean areas were in the mission because there is a KOREAN coming and he wants to put him in one of those areas!! Elder Scott highly recommended Summer Hill area, which includes an area called Campsie that is filled with Chinese and Koreans. Well Campsie is partially covered by Bankstown... I've asked around where Greenies are being trained and my area is the place with probably the most Koreans, not much but some... I've asked the APs, but they said that President Runia doesn't make final decisions until they get here... So I'm on edge to find out who my Greenie will be. I'm the only Korean speaker who is training... So please pray that I get the Korean coming in. My Korean will just skyrocket through the roof!! So I've been pretty anxious these past couple days. I'm excited to train. Nervous, but we'll just go out and do the work. Give it our best and let Heavenly Father take care of the rest. I'll go to the mission office to pick him up tomorrow (Wednesday). So we'll see!!
So last week as Zone Leader was... Crazy... So I won't say what happened, but you can probably guess, in the ball park, what made it crazy.
As missionaries, we agree to a set of rules to follow. These rules, abnormal to the normal world but like all the principles and commandments of the Gospel, are meant to protect us, guide us, enable to us to have the companionship of the Holy Ghost more abundantly, and to be able to truly show by word and by deed that we are representatives of Jesus Christ and that we strive to do what He would do if He were in our position. Like the Gospel, it all comes down to obedience and submission to the will of God. In Moses 7, it gives an account of the Prophet Enoch conversing with the Lord. In verse 33, the Lord identifies 2 main commandments that He gave to the "workmanship of mine own hands":
1) "they should love one another"
2) "That they should choose ME"
However, as imperfect, mortal beings that we are, we "are without affection, and [we] hate [our] own blood." This is the lifelong struggle. The seemingly impossible commission given by Jesus Christ once in Jerusalem and once among the Nephites in early America - "Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect."
I was listening to a talk by, then, BYU President Jeffrey R. Holland, titled "The Will of the Father in All Things". In this devotional, he identified obedience/submission to the will of God as THE greatest, lifelong struggle and pursuit of mankind. Referencing the account of the resurrected Jesus Christ's visit to the America, he read the Savior's introduction to the Nephites - "Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world. And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning." (3 Nephi 11:10-11). In introducing himself, the Savior highlighted His obedience and submission to the Father, our Heavenly Father. Of all the things that the Savior could've introduced himself with, He chose this. Identifying His obedience and submission as one of the most, if not the most, important aspect of true discipleship. As His greatest trial and accomplishment.
So if this is the case for the Savior, no wonder it is so difficult for us to do so. So how is it possible? Where do we start? King Benjamin gives us an answer: "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he YIELDS to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, SUBMISSIVE, meek, humble, patient, full of love, WILLING TO SUBMIT to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth SUBMIT to his father." (Mosiah 3:19)
I invite you to take a look at your life and your decisions from this past week, and determine whether you've really been submitting your will the will of our Heavenly Father. Are there commandments that you struggle with? Have been doing your "Come, Follow Me" readings? Praying? Magnifying your calling? Finding people for the missionaries to teach??? Obedience is the first law in heaven. So if this life is the time to prepare to meet God, how can we possibly expect to be prepared to meet Him and live with Him if we were not obedient in this life.
I promise you that blessings and miracles will flow into your life as you are obedient to God's commandments. As every missionary know, "Obedience brings blessings, but EXACT obedience brings miracles." I haven't been the best and I know where I need to improve. The scriptures provide us endless examples of the miracles and blessings that can come into our life as we submit our will to the will of God -
"Blessed art thou, Nephi, for those things which thou hast done; for I have beheld how thou hast with unwearingness declared the world, which I have given unto thee, unto this people. And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments.
And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearingness, behold, I will bless thee forever; and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in words; yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will." (Helaman 10:4-5)
Elder Brandon Escamilla
에스카미야 장로
Australia Sydney Mission
호주 시다니 선교부
My zone leader companion, Elder Staheli, Samoan speaking. Awesome guy and missionary.
Me and my companion, Elder Grant (wearing the Higley High School jumper) at the train station before I left.
Some pictures from Prairiewood.