Ben's Mission to Toronto

From Ben - Breaking the Tide There's this wild cycle the Lord takes me on It's not very original, and we all go through it.  It's based around the promise in Ether 12:27, that if we come unto the Lord He will show unto us our weakness.  The Spirit will encourage the thoughts, actions, words and choices that need to change, or need refinement -  usually because I start feeling dull, discouraged, or unmotivated.  Then two choices are presented.  1) I try to solve it myself, through more planning, more pondering, and will-power, or,  2) I recognize the chance to change with humility and faith in Jesus Christ.  With a shocking statistical majority, I nearly always go the first route, which quickly adds a few more pounds of discouragement and unnecessary challenge to the daily adventure.  Soon, after realizing again that I have neglected the necessary faith in humility in Christ, and feel the colour of life tone greyer and greyer, I will pray and seek ...

From Ben - Children of a King. Kinda Cool Not Gonna Lie Abby and Mia, the title goes out to you   ("Kinda cool, not gonna lie") One of the great joys of my missionary experience currently, is being able to spend it with Elder Theseus Surdu.  This Elder possesses the gift of humor like nothing I've ever seen before. He just exists, and for a reason beyond your comprehension, you just start smiling.  His patience is a blessing as well. He humors long  tangents of thought I take him on and just listens, allowing my thoughts to spill out and organize themselves as they leave the abstract world of my mind. It's a blessing to learn from his leadership and personality.  Of the adventure partners to pick from, he's top tier.  This week was was almost nothing but adventure.  Monday night, we get a call from President Stacey.  "Elders, the missionaries in Timmins have been stuck in the house for really long (one of them was really sick). Will you two go and...

From Ben - Unseen Duels We had a follow up MLC on this upcoming Tuesday, to discuss the goals and plans we had come up with two weeks ago at the last meeting.  The early morning drive ensued and the adventure began.  President Stacey gave his characteristic instruction with the Spirit, and challenged us to be more committed to our higher principles that we currently were.  Him and Sister Stacey also discussed the principles of Principled leadership, and the methods and steps of "teaching true principles, but letting people govern themselves" I'm not going to lie though, a fight of unexpected proportions was going off in my mind.  Maybe it is to be blamed on the lack of a scripture study, maybe on the exhaustion of an early early morning, but whatever the cause, the thoughts of competition and tainted comparison were on full bore. I almost learned more from meeting from the intense swordplay in my brain then the teaching and instruction.  Logically, I could recog...