Paying the Price

So I just finished writing in my journal and at the end of the entry, I laughed a little when I wrote all cutesy-like

33 days left!

Let it be noted, that if I ever tell you how many days I have until I leave, I probably seem a lot more confident than I really am. 33 days is scary!! That means that pretty soon it will be in the 20's and when it's in the 20's...I'll feel like I have no time left.

Anyway. Preparing to leave has been a challenge for sure. One of those challenges that people tell you about but you don't really understand until you're right in the middle of it. I am not a fan of being unprepared nor of starting something I have little information about. So the whole idea of the "unknown" about going into the MTC and then 12 days later suddenly being in Charlotte, is slightly less than appealing to me. In other words, I guess I don't love being super adventurous. More like, I don't like being adventurous without a plan (is a planned adventure an oxymoron? Maybe.)

This has proven to be difficult as I study Preach My Gospel and the Book of Mormon and such because as I'm studying I feel like I'm preparing for a test that is gonna have a lot of open-ended questions, and the range of questions is infinite. Oh yeah and p.s. you'll be teaching many people, each with different circumstances. Soooo yeah, the answer you give to one person won't be effective for another person, good luck!

But it makes me think of discussions I've heard in institute and church about "paying the price". The example that stuck with me most is the idea of giving a talk in church where you speak by the Spirit, or teaching a lesson where you let the Spirit take the lesson where it needs to be taken. We are directed in D&C 50:17-18 to ask "Doth he preach it by the Spirit of truth or some other way? And if it be by some other way it is not of God."

However, some might get this idea of teaching by the Spirit mixed up in their minds and think that we can slack in our efforts to prepare, because well, the Spirit is gonna take over anyway, right? Why even put all of this work into preparing a lesson?

Because we need to pay the price. In Preach My Gospel on page 121 it says that "Dilligence in missionary work is an expression of your love for the Lord and His work." How can we be blessed with the Spirit if we have not put forth any effort? When I think about that, I realize that while on my mission, I might go into an appointment having prepared to teach about the Word of Wisdom and suddenly I find my companion and I are talking about eternal families. Did my efforts in preparing a lesson about the Word of Wisdom go to waste? I don't think so.

In D&C 84:85 it says
"Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say; but treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man."

So you're telling me I can't type up a speech of what I am going to say?? I can't just memorize the discussions??

(Newsflash: Welcome to missionary work in 2013, Kylie)

And then on page 185 of Preach My Gospel it says
"While others talk to you, avoid the tendency to think about what you are going to say. Make sure you are really concentrating on the person rather than planning your response."

I love this.
I am currently awful at this.

Having faith to know what to say is going to be challenging for me, but I've heard that you start to feel that ability come not long after you are set apart as a missionary. I just need to pay the price of "treasur[ing] up in [my] mind continually the words of life".


As I study for my mission, I may not come up with any brilliant teaching strategies, and I will definitely not enter the MTC and then Charlotte with all of the answers to every question. But that's the wonderful thing about having a loving Father in Heaven who knows these wonderful people better than anyone else, and who knows me better than anyone else. It is only through Him that I have any hope of touching the lives of anyone in North Carolina.

My favorite part of General Conference in April brought tears to my eyes and has played over and over again in my head. It was in President Eyring's talk when he said:

"As you bind up the wounds of those in need and offer the cleansing of His Atonement to those who sorrow in sin, the Lord's power will sustain you. His arms are outstretched with yours to succor and bless the children of our Heavenly Father..."