22 Nov 2010 - Alvorada Area (Dad)

[Response to a comment Dad made about Elder Christofferson's conference talk where he mentioned the old film "Man's Search for Happiness," and how it reminded Dad of showing the filmstrip back in the day he was a missionary.] They had film back in your mission? :) The thing that stood out to me when I was reading this is how much the missionary stuff has changed. I haven't heard anyone teach anything like this in the trainings etc. We don't talk about time I guess :) ["Life offers you two precious gifts—one is time, the other freedom of choice, the freedom to buy with your time what you will."] Also, in your day it seems they encouraged carrying as much as possible, projectors, stone-age cameras, flip-charts, filmstrips. I have a backpack but all it has is Bible, Book of Mormon, and 6 pamphlets. Things are a lot different these days, but things are the same too. I'm pretty sure some of these houses here looked exactly the same 600 years ago when you served. I thought it was hard at first to just talk, but now it's a lot easier than memorizing every lesson. Elder Jeffrey R Holland talked about that a little bit during a devotional in the MTC. He told a story about 2 Americans on a Spanish speaking mission and they were in the age of memorized lessons. They found this one lady and they were talking to her, and she found out they spoke English. She wanted to practice her English so she asked them to leave the message in English rather than Spanish. The missionaries just looked at each other and started in Spanish. She stopped them and asked for English once again but the missionaries began in Spanish again. They had memorized it in Spanish after all. The lady stopped them and asked them why they couldn't teach her in English if this message was so important. She was disturbed that the missionaries only knew the memorized Spanish lesson but couldn't testify in their native language the truth of the gospel and she asked them to leave. Just a story, but it doesn't matter if the lesson is memorized or not, a missionary should be able to testify by the Spirit and not what he memorized or what he practiced 100 times in the MTC. In that way missionary work is the same forever and for always. We teach by the Spirit, no matter how smart or how much we know the language, the lesson will mean nothing without the Spirit. Paul taught by the spirit, Dan Jones too, You, Michael, Me all teach by the spirit and that is what missionary work is. That is why we don't need a badge or calling to teach the gospel, just the Spirit.