Chapter 69: The Vine

"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love."

John 15:4-5, 9

First full week into 2022 and time continues to promptly pass; I feel like each week I just observe time going by without much control and I'm more at peace with that than I used to be. This week we saw Elder Holbrook off for his return home—he's a great man and I've definitely learned a lot from him.

It's been really exciting here: we are coming up on transfers and so this week we got my new companion Elder Lambert to help him get ready to be an Assistant. I've worked with him a lot on my mission so far. When I was Zone Leader in Glasgow, I saw him become one of the district leaders to then my replacement and now my companion; he's grown a ton since I left him. He's a great man and I'm really excited to be his companion here in Edinburgh.

The main activity we've been working at this week has been trying to come up with the Mission Plan. For the past six months or so, the main goal of the MLC has been to develop an effective plan for the whole mission going into 2022. At the last MLC in December, Elder Kulmayer and I led a council where we identified the key principles and goals that the leaders had brought from the missionaries they work with across the mission. Since then, we've been trying to write a simple plan to effectively apply these principles and grow as a mission.

We reached a breakthrough this week reading John 15, Doctrine and Covenants 4, and Jacob 5. We were able to make the plan based off of these inspired records from both ancient and modern prophets and the words of the Saviour himself.

As we did this, I learned many things, but I think most important of all was just how loving the Saviour is. He is, as Elder Uchtdorf mentioned in his last conference talk, "the gentle Christ," who yearns to work side by side with us in His work of salvation.

He is "the Lord of the Harvest" (Alma 26:7), who has called "other servants, [which are] few," to assist him in the season of harvest (Jacob 5:61,70). As members of his Restored Church, we are those other servants who have been given the Book of Mormon, the great sickle in conversion, and who have been commanded to embark in his service, to thrust in that sickle with our mights for not only the salvation of others, but for ourselves as well (Doctrine and Covenants 4)!

As we do this, we abide in Christ and bring forth the fruits of the harvest: true conversion and unspeakable joy (John 15:4-5,9-14). At the end of it all, the wheat of the harvest is bound together into sheaves by the cords of covenants, and gathered into the garners of God's kingdom. As such happens we are promised to hear these words from the Saviour:

"Blessed art thou: for because you have been diligent in laboring with me in my vineyard, and have kept my commandments...behold, ye shall have joy with me because of the fruit of my vineyard" (Jacob 5:75).

That is the joy of eternal life with our families. That is what this life is about, and I invite you all to consider that and strive to deepen your own conversion and try and help others to do the same. What I've learned is that the Book of Mormon is key.

Life is good.

God is wise.

Don't give up.

Elder Childers

Us visiting Romnik at Domino's where he works! He put our order under the name "Love"

Council plus Elder Klintworth

1000 year old quail eggs with the Chinese Elders. I love them all so much and it was great to see them for Elder Lamberts last Sunday.

The future best golfer in the world: Angus Klintworth

All of us together