Elder Call Exhorts Us to ACT

16 August 2010

Dear Dad,

How are things going this week for everyone back home? For the most part things are going well here in Taylor Mountain.

This week we talked with a couple of different families about some friends and doing missionary work. The one family was telling us that their friends know all about the gospel (some of friends are less-active). "We have talked with them a lot about the church. They know." "Oh, they have been invited. They know how we feel...They know about the church." We were trying to help them understand that they need to invite their friends to act frequently, but they just wouldn't hear it. "They know about the church."

It is simply not enough for our friends to know about the church, we need to ask them to act. The Savior didn't just sit there being a good person and being a good example. But he taught, and true teaching comes with an invitation to act so that the student can learn by becoming.

On the other hand we went and talked with a sister that has truly tried to help her friends become as the Savior is. She has invited them to church, frequently. Even asked them to take the missionary lessons. The friends declined, but they were given the option. They were allowed to exercise God given agency; to choose "either liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil" (2 Nephi 2:27)

That is the point of our existence, to help Heavenly Father, in the small way we can, to bring our brothers and sisters eternal life. As the Savior prayed in John 17:18 "As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world."

It is a cause with love as the pure driving force, love that allows this redemptive plan to function.

As Moroni taught in Moroni 7:48 "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen."

We will "be" like him, "as" him. Eternal joy is a state of existence--it is life. We become as Christ is--he is life.

"Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other." (2 Nephi 2:16)

This is all stuff that you already knew, but I have realized how true that is, I feel like I am not fulfilling my purpose if I don't invite others to act.

Not many exciting things have happened this week. Keep me posted on what has happened back home.

Love,
Elder Call