The Faith to Build Faith! February 13, 2017

Hello!

Elder Moody and I just had a crazy busy week. We had MLC (missionary leadership conference), ZTM (zone training meeting), interviews with President Teh, and companionship exchanges all in the same week. As a mission we have shifted our focus to the instruction given to us in the last Worldwide Misisoanry Broadcast. Put simply, we are focusing on helping missionaries to better live and understand the gospel of Jesus Christ in order to help our investigators do the same. To do that we have started to talk about the first step in the gospel of Jesus Christ which is.... 

FAITH

1. In the Lord

2. In yourself

3. In your companion

4. In your area

Elder Moody and I prepared a nice ZTM mainly focused on this prinicple. We also focused on NOT SKIPPING STEPS. Sometimes as misisonaries, members of the church, or just people in general we tend to focus more on the application portion of things without gaining a solid understanding of the doctine and principles behind the application first. For example, if you ask, "How do we help investigators prepare to be baptized?" you could answer; Get them to pray! Invite them to come to church! Read the Book of Mormon with them! But that's just the application. What we want is for investigators to first have faith that God is their Father in Heaven and that Jesus Christ is their personal Savior. That leads them to repent and apply. As David A. Bednar says, "The answer is always the doctrine." If any of us have a problem in life the answer we shouldn't  skip to application. We should first try to gain a better understanding of the doctrine and principles.

In other news, we have an awesome investigator who is going to be getting baptized this Saturday. His name is Brother Liu. He is a dad who self-contacted the church because he wants to provide a good environment for his 4 year old daughter to grow up in. Over the last little while he has developed his own faith and committed to live the commandments of God! We're looking forward to another awesome week here in Daya. Today we're taking the train back to Zhang Hua! I love that place. We're going to go to Mr. Steak with my old companion, Elder Stroud and some of the other missionaries in Zhang Hua. It should be good. 

Last but not least, I would like to congratulate Tom Brady for being a legend and doing legendary things (although that would've been pretty sweet if the Falcons won).  Love you all!

-Elder Poon