His Grace is Sufficient

This week my companion and I learned a lot about the importance of hard work to find spiritual answers. Even though we have such fantastic tools as the Bible Dictionary and the Topical Guide and a myriad of other tools to help us research topics, there are some concepts that require more than a few minutes to wrap your mind around and fully understand. This week my companion Anziano Blackwell and I found this to be very true as we prepared a lesson to give in our priesthood meeting this Sunday. The topic was the Atonement, but we wanted to make it a little deeper than the obvious and teach about how the Atonement can better fulfill our purpose as missionaries and better help the people we teach draw closer to Christ. We focused most of our lesson on the "enabling power of the Atonement" which is grace.

We spent a good few hours in total studying this topic and came to a much greater understanding of it and it's relevance to us and to really everyone. We found in the Bible Dictionary that grace is a "divine means of help or strength... to do good works that they would otherwise not be able to maintain if left to their own means." This really stuck out to us because it basically says that grace is the only way we can become better people and stay better people. Without grace, if left to ourselves, we cannot maintain good works, which means we cannot become like our Heavenly Father. This divine means of help and strength is the gift of a loving brother, even Jesus Christ and his Atonement. And the more good we do, the more we humble ourselves, the more we give our all to the Lord, the more grace He will bless us with. And this grace is necessary for our salvation and for our happiness in this life and in the next.

2 Nephi 25:23 says, "For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." I love this verse because it is so true! If we labor diligently, then will his grace attend us. And through the grace of our Jesus Christ who loves us so dearly and wants the absolute best for us always, we can do anything we are called to do. Another great scripture on grace is Ether 12:27, which emphasizes the sheer importance and power of grace and says, "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." This scripture is one of my all-time favorites because it's message is so hopeful. I have lots of weak things, we all do, but we have no reason to despair about it, because I know that if we humble ourselves before the Lord and give Him all we've, got he will make our weak things strong! I know this is true. I have experienced grace in my life time and time again. It's one of the major reasons why I know our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ love us. It's so unbelievably uplifting to know that this divine means of help and strength is always there for us is we simply qualify for it. I know that it will only be through the grace of Christ that I will be able to accomplish anything on my mission. I know that I have been aided here at the MTC by His grace and that without it I would not be nearly as prepared as I am for this journey that I will embark on in only a few days.

I hope everyone at home is doing well! I send my best wishes and I'm praying for you always!

-Anziano Wilkinson

Of Faith and Apostles

We had a really special guest speaker at the MTC this last Martedi (Tuesday), Elder Russel M Nelson, president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. His discorso (talk) was his first as president of that quorum and it was so cool to feel the spirit that he brought into the room and to hear his testimonianza del salvatore (testimony of the Savior). It was also extremely special to sing for him at the devotional.

This week has had an unspoken theme of faith for me personally. I'm come to realize that which is quite frankly obvious, that when we trust everything to the Lord, he will make everything work in the best way possible. For example, in lessons, we as fledgling Italian learners often are so worried about making cogent sentences that we try to plan them out in our heads before we say them. The only problem with this is that it's hard to sincerely listen to what your companion or investigator is saying when you're trying to think of what you're going to say next. But when you take the leap of faith to simply listen and sincerely try to understand the situation, the words are literally given to you to say. One of my favorite experiences with this so far happened during fast and testimony meeting this Sunday. I felt prompted that I needed to bare my testimony, but had absolutely no idea what I should say. So, remembering the principle of faith, I ceased giving the topic any thought and just listened. I stood up to bare my testimony and still have no idea what to say, but I just opened my mouth and inspiration flowed right though me.

I know that faith is a true principle and that we do have a Father in Heaven who love us and wants the absolute best for us. I know that He sent His Son to take the burdens of our sins so that we could become perfected though Him. His Atonement is real and it is sufficient to cover us entirely, all we need to do is believe and try our best to follow his commandments. We were sent to this Earth quite simply to see if we loved our Father in Heaven enough to return back to him. And I am so glad that I get to help the people of Italy by pointing them in the right direction to return home.

One more realization that I had this week was the shear insignificance of my own desires. Who cares what I need or what I want? I have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in my Life. And the Gospel of Jesus Christ is everything. There are people out there who do not have this. Who am I to be concerned about myself when there are people out there looking for the truth but are kept from it only because they no not where to find it? I have a Job to do, and it's not to satisfy myself, but to serve my God and his children with all my might mind and strength. Salvation is on the line. What else could be more direly important than that?

I hope you all are having a great week! I've only got 12 more days until I take off for Italian soil! I am really excited to say the least!

-Anziano Wilkinson

Who's the Italian

This past week my district has been upping the ante with how often we try to speak in Italian. We've begun to recognize that the fastest way to learn the language is simply to speak it, so we've developed a few strategies to help us with that. One of them includes a game that was recommended to us by a member of our branch presidency. It's called "Who's the Italian?".

Basically, we as a district draw from a hat to decide who will be the Italian, but no one is supposed to know what you draw. The person who draws and becomes the Italian can't use English for the whole day, and everyone is trying to pretend to be the Italian so that they can win. Because at the end we all vote on who we think the Italian was and the winner gets a prize. So this ensures that we all are trying our bests to speak the language and it's pretty effective I might add!

On Sundays everyone in the zone has to write a talk about that week's sacrament meeting topic and on the day of two of us are randomly chosen to speak. I spoke last week on repentance and this week our topic was The Atonement. I was puzzled for a while about what I would say considering the two topics are so closely related, and seeing as I gave my repentance talk the Sunday before, I couldn't just rely on that one. As I studied the Atonement in preparation for this talk, I began to realize that the Atonement is so much more than a solution to spiritual death, so much more than an enabler for repentance (though, if this were all it were we would still have endless reason to rejoice). I found in Preach My Gospel that the Atonement of Jesus Christ has the power to make right "all that is unfair about this life". That's a pretty profound thought. Everything unfair that we experience in this life can be made right by the power of the Atonement, whether in this life or the next. For some blessings come soon, some take years, and others don't come until the resurrection, but if we have faith and endure to the end, then those blessings will most certainly come.

This simple fact has strengthened my testimony of the Atonement a lot. With a power such as this so infinitely available to us throughout our lives, can we really ever say that "life isn't fair"? I believe the only truly unfair life this world has ever seen is the life of Jesus Christ, who suffered everything and was guilty of nothing. We cannot say the same; in comparison we are each guilty of a great many of things, and yet our lives will never be as hard as his was. For he suffered everything that we will ever suffer, everything that anyone ever has suffered, and everything that ever will be suffered. Because his Atonement is sufficient to cover it all. I bare testimony to this in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.

until next time,

Anziano Wilkinson

A blur

These past two weeks have been a blur. The fact that we have P-days in the middle of the week means it feels like we have two weekends a week, which is pretty sweet if I say so myself! I feel like I've known my district and zone for months and like I've always known my companion (but maybe that's just because we are with each other 24/7). I can't complain though, I love my zone, district, and especially mia collega (my companion)!

               This week held a nice surprise in that I got to sit with Jared at Choir practice. This is significant because I can count on one hand how many times we've encountered each other so far at the MTC. Anyway, we got to catch up and it was really great! (He's doing well Donna, no worries!)

               This week we committed our first simpatizante (investigator) to baptism; the spirit was way strong in that lesson and it so amazing to see. Mia Collega Anziano Blackwell and I have committed our second investigator to read the Book of Mormon and pray. It is amazing that one can learn to love a person so quickly. My companion and I feel quite emotionally involved already with Luca (Lucas) and I'm hoping we can continue to help him draw closer to Christ!

               Some amazing scriptures I have read lately have been from the end of Ether and the end of Moroni. Moroni adds his own words into both books and they pertain a lot to hope, faith and charity. It says a lot about what he was going though, living as the last Nephite basically in exile and on the run for the rest of his life. It says a lot about what he was struggling with, hope in particular, since he had little to have hope in this life. His testimony of hope is very powerful and strengthens me as I face eminent arrival in Italy where I will have to learn super quickly. I have found from Moroni's words that we must have hope for better things to come, not in this life but the next. We must hope for eternal life, life with God, or else we will face despair (the opposite of hope) frequently in this life. I can attest to the truth of that, I know it's true; there is great happiness and surety in hope for salvation and eternal life, as well as the possibility for exaltation of others. Particularly when you’re aligning you life closely with God will. Hope in anything other than these things is bound to spoil. We must have hope in the Savior and his Atonement, His redeeming and exalting power, we must have hope that we can qualify for it.

I hope you guys are doing well! I love to hear from you all!

-Anziano Wilkinson

 The group picture is my district with Fratello Duersch, our teacher, third from the right and my companion on the far left

Break-Neck Speed

Things have been going great here during my first week at the MTC. From day one we have been flying at break-neck speeds but it's been a great experience. Our instructors have been speaking almost exclusively Italian to us since out first class but we're catching on quickly. We taught our first lesson on Friday and we've taught three more since... each one in only Italian. My companion Anziano Blackwell and I have been getting better with each lesson and and we're starting to get a good feel for the language. Humility has been a recurring theme for me since I have to accept the fact that I literally can't do this without the Help of our Heavenly Father, but as I've humbled myself I have found greater success and comprehension than I could even dream of by my own strength.

The food here is better than I've always heard, but we'll see how my opinion changes after my five more weeks here (PS yes mom, I am drinking more than just chocolate milk and yes, I am eating my vegetables).

I know that the work that I am embarking on is the work of God and I know that I am called to this mission for a purpose. I can testify that without God that I, we, are nothing and that with him we are everything. I can't wait to see you all at the end of two short years! Ciao!

Love,

Anziano Wilkinson