Chapter 61: Diligence

"Diligence in missionary work is an expression of your love for the Lord and His work. When you are diligent, you find joy and satisfaction..."Preach My Gospel, page 127 A powerful week full of unexpected results. We had a Zone Conference on Tuesday with President Yates as well as the McCruddens. The whole focus was on helping us better understand how we are meant to use our time as missionaries. We have all been given a period of time to serve (two years or 18 months), and the only thing that we have control over is how we are going to use this time. Time passes constantly—there is nothing we can do to accelerate or decelerate its pace. Second by second, days turn into weeks, months and years. Ultimately, it takes a very deliberate and conscious effort to use our time effectively. The Lord has counseled clearly and simply, "thou shalt not idle away thy time" (Doctrine and Covenants 60:13). When we idle away our time, we lose sight of our purpose and can become easily distracted and tempted to sin. When we chose to be diligent, however, God can consecrate our earnest efforts into something unimaginable. This is something we experienced this week. After deciding to implement the counsel given us by the Mission Leadership, we resolved to be more diligent in the way we set daily goals and planned for our days. In so doing, I felt like we were able to get so much more done this week and feel much more accomplished in general. We ran from house to house in an effort to try and reach our goals, and helped the other missionaries in our Zone push themselves in different ways to do the same. The result was joy. What a simple Doctrine. God blessed us to find some really cool people this week and all of them came to church too! I simply know that when we put our all into what we do, when we really strive for dilligence, then we will be blessed with peace with ourselves and efforts, joy in the results we find, and a greater appreciation for the Saviour. Life is good. God is wise. Don't give up. Elder Childers

Literally the only pictures I have for this week is my steak pie I made