Week 29: Elder Dale G. Renlund, March 18th, and Pillows in Church
Out of all the things Elder Dale G. Renlund could have told a group of 200 missionaries, he choose to tell us "Thank You." Thursday there was a Missionary Conference with Elder Dale G. Renlund, President Cardon, and the whole Hamilton, New Zealand Mission. It was so fun to have a mini reunion with the missionaries I served with in the MTC and in Tauranga, including my last companion Sister Jabeque!! I should also thank Sister Cummings for attempting to be crowd control for a group of 200 teenagers. That's not an easy job. Mom thinks it's hard enough to watch over 3 (almost 4 teenagers).
Elder Dale G. Renlund truly is an apostle of the Lord. From the moment he spoke you could feel the Spirit of the Lord so strongly that it would almost be impossible to sit in the same room and not feel the spirit. He is a very classy individual with a great sense of humor. He told of us of a friend of his that is married to someone with the same name as his wife, Ruth, and his friend told him "We both have something in common. When our wife's are gone, we are both "Ruth-less." ;) I thought it was pretty funny. Anyway, you would think that an apostle of the Lord would have prepared a GIANT speech with some way to drastically improve the missionary work in New Zealand. However, he choose to talk about three things, with one of them being "thank you," a phrase that I feel we, as human beings, tend to forget to say. It's amazing how much a "thank you" really means to someone, especially us, missionaries.
The second thing he mentioned was how inspired our mission calls are. That we are meant to be serving in this mission for a reason, "and if you don't know down to the last bone that this is where you are meant to be at this time, you have the right and the privilege to know." He also described a time when he was assigning missionaries to their mission field. He told of us of one sister that he assigned and at first he assigned her to a mission in Europe. Later on, he didn't feel that was quite right, so he went back and changed it to Milan, Italy. Then he went back for a third time to that sister's mission call, and changed it again to Rome, Italy. He finally felt good about the decision he made. Somehow, he was able to meet the grandfather of the sister missionary he had assigned to Rome, Italy. The grandfather described how when his granddaughter opened her call, she was immediately in tears. As a 9 year-old this young girl went to the Provo MTC and looked at a map of the world and she pointed to Rome, Italy and told her family "That's where I'm serving my mission." How cool is that?!?!
The third thing he told us was how President Cummings got called as a mission president. President Cummings was just living his life when he got a phone call. From there, he meet with Elder Neil A. Anderson, and eventually he meet with Elder Uchtdorf, and was assigned to serve here in Hamilton, New Zealand. President Cummings is very inspired and is an amazing mission President.
We have a golden investigator set for baptism on March 18th!!!!! She's so golden!! If she could, she'd get baptized today. She truly has a desire to be with her family forever and to come unto Christ. She's the one I mentioned last week and used the name of Rachel. I love spending time in their home. They have such an amazing love for each other and you can feel of the Spirit of God in their home. Meeting with Rachel made me realize that it all comes down to our desires. Our desires become our thoughts, and our thoughts become our actions. Just like it says in 3 Nephi 13:21, "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Desires are what determine are actions. It's all about where are hearts are pointing.
Lastly, I have to tell you about pillows in church. No, I wasn't sleeping in church, but I used it as an object lesson for gospel principles. I held the pillow and walked around the class room and told everyone to punch the pillow. Then after everyone had punched the pillow, I took out a picture that was hiding inside the pillow and showed them a picture of Christ. I related that object lesson to the Atonement, and how Christ really did take that punch for us. It was a really cool lesson and even the Elders were in tears by the end of the it.
I'm so grateful for all of you and your love and support. You all mean the world to me and I'm grateful that you are a part of my life. Keep being awesome and I'll talk to you again next week.
Sister Mandy Welker
Sister Welker is on the front row, 5th one from the right.
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