Tuesday Devotional: Richard G. Hinckley 2-2-10

Sister Hinckley

• Keeps names of the people we work with in a journal

Elder Hinckley

• Be careful
• Missionary work is sometimes like the movie Groundhog Day (same thing every day) - here are some things to avoid that feeling
• Appreciate the Mission President and His sacrifice, follow his counsel
• Work with Ward Members
• 6 Points to avoiding Groundhog Day

1. Understand what my purpose is.  Read 2 Nephi 31, 3 Nephi 27
2. Be Obedient - protect my companion at any cost of my own popularity, stay with basic teaching tools: scriptures, Preach My Gospel, Testimony, personal touch
3. Be Clean - personal worthiness dictates how the spirit can guide us.
4. Work Hard- work hard, always work on working hard - greatness of a missionary is shown in his planner
5. Learn to love the people - they are strange, but we are more so
6. Exercise Faith - It will always be a work of faith, pray for myself, investigators, and members.  Say at the end of my mission: "I am glad I did it," not "I wish I had"

Sunday Priesthood Meeting 1-31-10 "A-ha" and "Huh?" moments, Doctrine

Brother Swift

• Unexpectedness causes people to think
• Answers and discussion need to be relevant to the issue
• "A-ha" moments happen after "Huh?" moments
• Ask, how can I get them to ask the questions I want them to ask?

Elder Tagg and Thompson

• Doctrine 1: Any principle
• Doctrine 2: The Gospel of Jesus Christ
• Doctrine 3: Jesus Christ

President Allen

• Doctrine: 1) Any principle taught, 2) anything related to the gospel, 3) something specific about Jesus Christ
• The words we use can be ambiguous, it is important for us to define them.
• Doctrine - Something taught by God through others intended for all people, such as through prophets or scripture
• Jesus Christ
• The Savior and Redeemer of the World (more specific)
• The one who has overcome everything bad in the world (more specific)
• He lived a perfect life and offered Himself as a sacrifice so we can overcome everything bad. (too long)
• The Only Begotten Son of God in the flesh  (think, what is it to be the begotten of God?)
• Mosiah 5: 7 - Begotten of Christ
• God is the father of our spirits, we become the begotten of Christ as we make covenants and we are changed through the Spirit
• Born Again - To have a change of heart to follow Christ in faith

Sunday Priesthood Meeting 1-24-10

In this meeting we started by discussing how we should review our chats.  Some important things we brought up:

• Look for our effective use of questions
• Are we using our scriptures effectively?
• Look not only at the depth of the question, but also the breadth of it as well
• Am I fishing with the right bait?
• Do I have a wide spectrum of bait?
• Am I linking to the individual with emotional ties?

Brother Swift:

• Gave the example of a drastic change in how people ate movie popcorn
• A commercial talked about the grams per ounce of bad stuff, and had a physical demonstration to show how bad it was
• This helped to make the facts sticky
• Not all truth is sticky
• How can we make the answers and the message we give sticky?
• Focus on the core issues
• Ex:  Q: What is a Prophet?  A: Someone who gives us direction from God, like Noah.  Do you think it would be important to follow Noah if you lived in his time?

Brother Thomas

• Symbols and words produce feelings in us
• Use Elders, so we can feel like Elders, not guys
• There is nothing difficult.  You either can do it, or you cannot, some things just take more time.