The Worth of One Soul

This week we are blessed with a lady Dizi, another lady Maria, and stake conference!!

One of the blessings from being a missionary is attending different stake Conferences and being a part of a new ward so regularly. It was one of the greatest stake Conferences ever! (besides the last one in foothills I attended because I spoke😁).  This one was so missionary focused. Let's review shall we? OK so we had an area seventy come and speak, and his wife gave a shout out to our investigator over the pulpit saying she needs the gospel:) It was so cool and I had the biggest smile. Marcella attended 5 hrs of conference this weekend!!! The Spanish and English meetings. She is amazing. So the Seventy guy shared with us the worth of one soul. Now this is important so pay attention. He had a high school student stand next to him at the pulpit and asked him some brief questions. To break it down that high school student needed baptism, mission (which would include priesthood and temple) and temple marriage. Boom he has 5 kids. He asked those 5 kids to stand up. Asked them what they should do. Baptism, mission, temple marriage. They each had 5 kids. Boom 25 more people stand up. They go through the routine and each have 5 kids. Throughout 120 years we had the whole congregation, 625 people standing up. They represent members and are the descendant of the one soul who got baptized because of a member who encouraged him to hear about the gospel. He went on a mission, and got married in the temple. I've stressed this before but you people out there are better missionaries than us. Maybe not at teaching;)ha but you have the connections, you know the area, you know the people. The worth of one soul, is more than you can really comprehend. He went through and focused that the prime people to target are young adults and kids. They are open. We all know them, get one of your kids to just invite! Have faith and do it.  if you don't have the confidence, or you fear their response then go read or listen to president Monson's last address. He promises us 3 things at the end. He says that if we read the Book of Mormon every day then we will have the spirit more regularly in our lives, we will resist temptation, and we will overcome our doubts and fears. I know that is what it takes. You will wax strong in the gospel and sharing the gospel will not be such a strange thing to do. God needs you. He wants his children to come back to the fold. Don't be shy or afraid. Show your confidence!! You know it's true don't you!?!?! Members here are getting that flame and success is on the rise. According to the statistics in the mission, the missionaries find like a billion investigators. Of those billion a very small percent get baptized. Of the investigators who members refer, it's over 75% who get baptized. Now I know those numbers aren't very specific but you get the gist. The missionary work is so successful when members are involved. Now I know you get nervous that the missionaries will mess it up. They are called of God, and assigned to be there for a reason. And if the missionaries do bad just wait for Elder Pilling 1 to get home shortly and he can save them hahaha

  

So an example;  a nice lady Dizi was referred to us by members, she is late 70's early 80's and she is so ready for the gospel. I know she will join the church. She has the connections. She's been to 2 services before and she has been reading the Book of Mormon. We taught her once and she had already been saying :I believe the church is true"

Another example. Marcella, an investigator through member efforts, she spent 5 hours at stake conference!! She is following the word of wisdom  and she is praying about a baptismal date. I'm not too far from Canada here in California. It's very similar. It's not like I'm in Africa and it's a completely different scenario because its the same. Same church, same people, same opportunities. I spend all this time writing about this in hopes one person invites one soul. Because the worth of souls is great in the sight of God. We as missionaries continue to exercise faith in working the streets etc and we do find souls to teach. Just the other day we met Maria who we had the opportunity to share the restoration with. Her questions showed her interest and the spirit spoke to us both that she will investigate this work and we have faith she'll progress towards baptism. 

I've really been focusing on personal revelation. A lot of general conference was about that. It's amazing what the Lord will tell you as you seek his help. He will tell you what you need to do, say, and where to go. Act on the promptings and you will invite the spirit and miracles into your life. 

Love you all, this is pretty much like giving a talk about member missionary work, so sorry but that's what's on my mind. 

Enjoy 

Elder Pilling