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November 13, 2017 - The Authority is Real

Hello,

Lots of stuff happened this week.

Here's what happened on Wednesday. We are driving to the Johnson's who live outside the city a little ways (I was the passenger). We're getting close to the destination and the GPS says to take a left turn to a road where there is not one. The road looks more like an ATV trail that you could maybe get an off-road truck through. In my mind I'm thinking well let's try a different road but my companion from Arizona, who's well acquainted with off-roading decides to just turn onto the trail and start going. No words come out of my mouth and I just watch as we slowly trudge through this trail with our Rav4 SUV. I'm calm despite the nagging thought of, "how are we going to get out of this?" It goes well for about 100 meters but the trail gradually becomes more and more bumpy and muddy. Finally, we reach a halt. The wheels spin in the muddy water and we are done for. 

We just sit for a moment, then the reality of what deep dodo we're in, literally sinks in,

"Well that's just great." 

I'll finish the rest of the story next week but I took a picture to show you what we had to deal with. Looking back on the experience it's funny how there are many lessons I could draw from it which relates to life.

The day before we were stuck in the mud we had a zone conference in which Kevin W. Pearson of the Seventy paid a visit. I would say the theme of the conference was Learning by Faith. Holy cow can Elder Pearson teach by the spirit. Probably the best counsel and instruction I have ever received from any meeting anywhere. He spent about the first 15 mins helping us get in the appropriate mind set to learn horizontally (listening to him) and vertically (listening to the spirit). He said the learner can draw out the power and influence of the Holy Ghost on the teacher depending on their faith. I've clearly seen how the flow of a priesthood blessing is dependent upon the faith of the receiver, but I didn't make that connection with teaching before.

I'd like to share just a snippet of what I took away from the conference. 

He talked a lot about our divine identity. 

He drew this out for us: This demonstrates how are identity translates into our reality

|    Identity -----------------------------> Divine
|         \/              Who we are (what we see in the mirror) tells us what we should value and believe
|   Values and beliefs
|         \/               Our values and beliefs affect our attitude toward life and reflects our behavior
|    Attitudes and behaviors
|         \/               Our attitude and behavior has a direct effect on the choices we make
|    Actions
|         \/               Our choices/actions mold our reality
\/    Reality -----------------------------> Destiny

He drew out a line from Identity --> Divine and then a line from reality --> destiny to point out the process by which we achieve our diving destiny.

Now it makes sense why the general authorities  so often repeat and emphasize that we are children of God with divine potential. They are reminding us who we really are. Elder Pearson simply said, "You are not you."

Ultimately, as a missionary from here on out, I am going to focus my teaching on the top level of this chart and not just the 2nd or 3rd level. 

In order to experience a lasting change of reality, we first must change the way we look at ourselves. 

Good stuff and a good week, I'm out of time. Have a great week!

Elder Johnson

Pic: Stuck in rut (haha it relates to life)


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