Chapter 64: Counsel

"And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord."

Isaiah 11:2

What an incredible week. I have never been this exhausted on my mission. Actually, I have never been this exhausted in my life. The responsibilities I now have I understood very little about and were ill-prepared for. However, I am adjusting as well as I can and simply trying to listen and learn as I go. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed and a bit lost, but time and time again I've felt the reassurance of The Spirit encouraging me forward.

This past week has been spent entirely trying to plan and coordinate the moves of the entire mission for the upcoming transfer. From the temporal side of things, this involves an incredible amount of stamina and diligence: our mission covers three separate countries, all with different COVID regulations, leaving us to plan travel by ferry, train, bus, and walking for 120 missionaries who all need to get where they need to spanning across a week of moves. Then you add in the planning required to get departing missionaries home and the new missionaries paired up with their trainers at the mission office then shipped off to their areas. Once all that is figured out, the data has to be put cohesive and simply onto a spreadsheet, adding information about what to do with flat keys, bus passes, car keys, cars, etc, where the Zone Leaders can then help us plan travel. Cars need to be planned out, flats need to be closed or opened, and so much more.

All of that is done by, normally, two missionaries. Luckily, there are four of us for now so we've been blessed to have all of our heads in it together. Also, the mission secretary, Sister Escamilla, helps us incredibly. But that's just the temporal side.

The spiritual side comes first and is much different.

Before we plan travel, we as the assistants with President hold a three day council about where missionaries should be moved to. It was such an amazing experience. To kneel in prayer with President McCrudden and my companions then to just counsel, liberally and openly, was very humbling. It became clear to me very quickly that revelation is very rarely a pillar of light or a vision of an angel. Revelation comes through a process of information to inspiration.

Through these experiences, I've really come to know that "where no counsel is, the people fall" (Proverbs 11:14). I have felt "the spirit of counsel and might" rest upon me. It's pretty neat.

Seek to counsel with those you love about the decisions you face, and, in all things, counsel with the Lord. He will always lead you to where you need to be and guide you in what to do.

Life is good.

God is wise.

Don't give up.

Elder Childers

Romiks Baptism!

Good friends Elder Klintworth and Elder Draney