This week was kinda awesome again.
This email is long and kinda all over the place. Sorry! haha
We had an awesome Street Display here in Dortmund yesterday. It was one of the most successful I've ever seen actually. We were just finding people like crazy. So many prepared people and I felt the spirit really strong in a few contacts. It was good to just testify and invite. It was awesome.
So some crazy stuff went down this week. A district of branches in the Berlin mission was broken up and reassigned to the neighboring stakes and 2 areas of that mission got reassigned to our Mission. So we snagged 4 missionaries from the Berlin Mission, who are now in ours! I've never even heard of that before but we are glad to have them. The Bad Bentheim Elders overnighter with us on the way back from a Zone Conference in Offenbach and we got to know them. They are 2 cool Elders. I'm excited to work with them.
We split with the Hamm elders and I got to be with the one and only Elder Sticht here in Dortmund! It was a lot of fun. My first split with him was almost exactly one year ago in Langen, which is kinda freaky haha
On Saturday we got to visit a Baptism in Hagen! It was for a 9 year old boy named Jeremiah who I got to interview last week and he's awesome. It was a really good service, and very well attended by members. It was a cool experience.
Russ is doing amazing. We had another amazing lesson with him this week. I think I forgot to mention that we set a baptismal Date with him for the 9th of June, and he is killing it in his preparation for it. We talked about missionary work and courage as we read Alma 17 with him and a member. The member just killed it with friendshipping him and bringing the spirit. We are very excited.
I learned a bit about fear this week in my studies about the Savior! Fear has always been tricky for me to define, since in the scriptures it is said that Fear opposes Faith, Fear opposes Charity and Love, and Fear also destroys Hope and Peace.
I've never been quite able to pin it down what it means to fear, where it comes from, and what the best way is to beat it.
As I read through the several accounts of the Savior's Resurrection and empty tomb, I noticed that nearly every time an angel or even the Savior himself appear to Mary or the Apostles, the very first thing that they say is "Fear not" or "Peace be unto you". This is true also for the Angel Gabriel when he appears to the virgin Mary ("Fear not") or to her husband to be Joseph ("Joseph, fear not"). There are countless examples of heavenly visitations and almost always the first response of Man is fear (Adam and Eve in the Garden, Alma the Younger and the Sons of Mosiah, the Brother of Jared, etc.)
My question was why the heck they feared when they saw an angel of the Lord, or even the Lord himself? I mean the Apostles had lived and journeyed with the Lord for 3 years but when he appears to them after his resurrection, they feared at first.
What I decided is that Fear comes from Uncertainty. That the fear of the unknown is really at the core of all fears. Dread is not the same as fear.
After the Savior appeared to the apostles he "[opened] their understanding", and they finally stopped fearing. As they understood, they stopped fearing.
Anyway I have a lot of uncollected thoughts and lot of examples I collected from a bunch of different stories in the scriptures.
But with regards to Faith, Hope and Charity, I had some cool findings!
Alma 32:21 reads:
"21 And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true"
Faith is not a perfect knowledge. That means that even though we may have uncertainty and experience fear, we can still have faith. We will never know everything in this life. But we exercise Faith when we focus on what we do know, and we are victims of Fear when we focus on what we don't know. There is an infinite supply of questions in the universe, and questions are not bad. Faith gives way to fear though when we focus on the questions instead of the answers. But the converse is also true. The greatest fears crumble when we choose to focus on the things we do know and the Savior.
"Perfect love casteth out all fear" (Moroni 8:16)
Love will always trump fear because as we put the needs of others above our own, the uncertainty in our own lives doesn't matter to us. For instance the story of Ammon in the Book of Mormon (Alma 17). Alma stands alone against an entire band of robbers whose numbers "were not a few". He stands for is fellow servants and the chance that by showing the power of God, he can reach them with his message of the Gospel. His love for his fellow man overrode the fears he may have experienced as he made his stand.
Anyway, those are some of my random thoughts on overcoming fear. Sorry it was long and disjointed! But I love you all and I'm grateful for your prayers! I feel your support every day.
God loves you and wants you to succeed! Use your faith to do something hard or new this week!
Have a wonderful week! Alles alles Gute!
Tschüß!
Elder Harps
Pics:
We toured a the Soccer Stadium here in Dortmund (It has the highest seating capacity of any in Germany) with the Assistants, Münster Elders, and the Hamm and Dortmund Sisters. It was awesome
No comments:
Post a Comment