Elder P. Traasdahl: Jan. 13, 2014 - The less selfish we are with prayers....

Another week has come and gone! Dad's now in the running to be the next Paul Bunyan! Austin's workin up to be the next John Mayer, Mom's keeping the family in line with the green health shakes in the morning and Braden's seems to be going to be called to be one of the first missionaries to open up China with his language skills! Can't forget Grandma-T hooking everyone up with the beenies either. Those are neat. That's sweet that you were able to go to that YSA shin dig Aust, it sounds like it was really good! Alex Boye is an inspirational guy. There's going to be a fireside out here about an artist who had a model who was a LA member. The artist was a Christian artist so the model had to portray Christ and the fireside is all about his conversion and coming to know Christ through the experience. It's going to either be in 3 weeks or 6 weeks. It should be pretty good.

This week was one of those weeks where you have great spiritual experiences, and then immediately after Satan throws all he's got at you to really see what you've got! We had our specialized training meeting this week and it was all centered on the atonement and Jesus Christ. The majority of our zone is struggling, so we were tempted to have a "let lay it on the table and talk about it" type of meeting. We knew though that they all knew they were struggling, and felt it, so we didn't mention a word about perishing areas. What came from it was an incredibly powerful meeting where all participated, we were taught, the spirit was present, they were taught, and everyone's faith in Christ was strengthened. We used a video that Tyler had sent to me that had some talks on missionary work and the atonement, and that was like icing on the cake. I have an extra copy, I'll have to send on home. The one downside, kinda, was the President was there interviewing the zone at the time, so people were walking in and out the entire time. It was slightly distracting, but it was for a good cause. The best part about it however was last night, during call in summary reports. One district that was struggling the worst, had each area affect almost each key indicator. It was awesome to see the fruit of elders and sisters acting in faith, facing their fears, and relying upon the Lord.

We've been meeting with the Brown family, a PM family, and it's been a struggle to get them to church. This past week though we were able to get our bishop over and our relief society president over to their home for lessons, so that was a big success. Now we know they'll have a greater chance of being talked about in ward council and PEC and there will be more push from the ward to help this family become active again. These past few days Elder Burr and I have been studying a good deal on prayer. A quick insight I gained this week came from the examples of prayer in the Book of Mormon. Lehi had great concern for the people of Jerusalem so he prayed and then had a vision. Alma the younger had some dissenters of the church be brought forth to be judged by him. He didn't want to make the wrong judgement so he prayed earnestly and received a wonderful revelation on the mercy and justice of God. Nephi, (in Helaman) while walking along the road to his home "pondering" (or in other words, having a prayer in his heart) on the things which the Lord taught him and the wickedness of the people, has a revelation and is blessed by the Lord and receives the sealing power of the priesthood. What's the common denominator between all these prayers? They were praying on behalf of others. In turn, the Lord blessed them and they received magnificent answers to their prayers! Now, I'm not saying if we pray for others we'll have a vision every time or hear the voice of the Lord. However, it does seem to me that the less selfish we are with our prayers, and the more we turn outward with our prayers, the greater desire we'll have to help and serve others, and love our neighbor as our self. I enjoy each week getting to hear from all of you, thanks for your love and prayers!

Love,

Elder Traasdahl