This last week was zone conference week. Since our mission is relatively small we only had three zone conferences instead of four. We only have Zone Conferences once every three months so this is only my second time being involved with planning and training in Zone Conferences. It is a very stressful but very fulfilling week. We had a Zone Conference on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. They started at 8 am and ended at 5 pm. Elder Buhler and I were both assigned to train for a half hour each. He trained on faith filled planning and i spoke on faith filled finding. I decided to start my training by talking about how important it is to use both agency and inspiration in our finding efforts.
Bruce R McConkie gave a talk entitled " Agency or Inspiration, Which?" In it he talks about the importance of using both agency, The God given ability we have to think, to reason things out in our mind and come to conclusions from our knowledge and experience, and inspiration, the ability we have to pray and receive answers to our prayers on what we should do. On the surface it seems like these things could clash. It seems like agency could take away from inspiration, that since God knows all we have no need to reason or draw from past experience, all we have need for is prayer. The truth is, is that they don't clash. God has given us both and we need to use both. In making a decisions we need to always be praying to be led and guided but we need not wait to move until we have a spiritual experience. We need to study out our options, we need to get creative and decide what we think is best, and then its vital we take to God in prayer what we have come up with what our conclusion is, and ask God if it is what He would have us do. If he is happy with our decision he will give us a burning in the bosom, for me its that i feel exited and good about the conclusion i came to.
If its not what he would have us to we will have the stupor of thought, we will feel not so confident and exited about or decision. In my training I applied this to finding people to teach. Sometimes in finding we are all inspiration and no agency. We don't bother with trying out the different ways Preach my Gospel teaches to find people. We do the same things we have always done but decide we are going to have more faith, and we think that by saying we are going to have the faith to find that we are actually demonstrating our faith, when in reality we need to demonstrate our faith by giving the Lord something to work with. On the other hand sometimes as missionaries we are all agency and no inspiration.
We think since we have been doing it for a long time that we know whats best. We forget to ask the Lord to guide us in our decisions and we also forget to ask for his approval when the decision is made. Our minds and hearts are closed to methods of finding that have not worked in the past. As missionaries we need to use both agency and inspiration in finding people to teach and all other aspects of missionary work. I am sure that i was taught this principle before my mission, and i think i had a partial understanding of it, but my understanding on how to receive answers to my prayers has greatly increased on my mission. I am very grateful for that, and i know it will bless me for the rest of my life. I had more things i was going to share but kinda went off on the agency and inspiration thing so i am out of time now. The Church is True. Gods plan is perfect and i am so grateful for it.
Elder Covey
--Fearless Via Faith
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