Actually, Elder Garcia was an assistant last month but got transferred out of the city last change and is now working as a zone leader again. The other three were brand new, and it was fun to have them all join us.
As always there was plenty of food. We began with breakfast--(yogurt, granola, muffins, juice and milk), which was followed with a snack of homemade salsa, chips and chocolate.
And later we had lunch--chicken cordon bleu, potatoes au gratin, baby carrots, fruit and chocolate cake. Here is a picture of the fruit plate!! A lady who helps me with the food did this. I think she is quite the artist. I was going to just serve the fruit on small plates, but after seeing this decided to put it on the table as an edible centerpiece instead.
For my lesson this month I taught Lehi's dream of the Tree of Life. I have always loved this story.
(Of course I had to make a tree!)
What I wanted the missionaries to understand was:
1. We need to "partake" of the fruit first before we can offer it to others.
2. When people are truly converted to the gospel, they will want to share the fruit with others.
3. We can measure the level of our own conversion by the degree of love we have for other people. If we are truly partaking of the fruit, we will feel love for our companion and the other missionaries, and will have a great love for the people here and want to share the gospel with them.
And this brings joy!
The assistants then taught Fundamental Lesson #3 on the importance of teaching investigators how to pray to receive revelation.
Here the zone leaders are practicing teaching investigators how to pray. Next week they will teach this same lesson to their zones.
And then it was President Wagner's turn. He taught on several things . . . using the visual of the Tree of Life along with Christ's intercessory prayer, he taught the need to become one with the Savior, our companions and the members. We ended with this and I think it left everyone with a very sweet spirit.
He also taught the missionaries the importance of using "The Seven Celestial Habits" of missionary teaching (and that title will sound familiar to friends back home!:-) They are:
PREDICAD MI EVANGELIO
7 HABITOS CELESTIALES
(EN CADA
LECCION)
1. DESAFIO BAUTISMAL SIEMPRE (Pag. 40)
2. ENSEÑE LECCIONES EN ORDEN (Pag. 30)
REVELACION Ayude a que lo reciban al:
3. ORAR (Pags. 39, 40, 96, 97)
4. LEER EL LIBRO DE MORMON (Cápitulo 5)
5. ASISTIR A LA IGLESIA (Pags. 76, 77)
6.
PIDA REFERENCIAS SIEMPRE (Cápitulo
9)
7.
EVALUAR Y FIJAR METAS (Pags.
156-162)
Translated they are: In every lesson you should . . . 1. Challenge to be baptized. 2. Teach the lessons in order (unless you feel VERY strongly the Spirit directing you to do otherwise) 3. Have the investigators pray 4. Give them an assignment to read from the Book of Mormon, 5. Invite them to church, 6. Ask for references, 7. Evaluate afterward
President Wagner also taught about the importance of setting goals. One of his points was that we need to set goals and then push ourselves to achieve them in order to progress. To demonstrate this he asked the missionaries to practice pushups during the past month. Then today they had a pushup contest.
So who won?
Was it this elder?
Or how about one of these two?
NOPE!! The winner was . . .
The President!!
The most a missionary did was 60 and he beat that by 10 and could have kept going. What they didn't know is he has been doing pushups every morning for about 35 years.
But his point was that we can do hard things, we just have to keep working at them, and---there is always room for improvement. I think he proved his point. :-)
After the council they all hurried off to the bus stations to return home but I was able to get pictures of a few of them.
And then there were the elders who made sure to "partake" of the fruit before they left . . .
And this is what I am missing at home . . .
Next week--Tepic and Vallarta!!
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