The temple was a wonderful experience that I was surprised coming out with a greater commitment to fulfil my calling; the Lord cannot provide, or will not, when i've not been a proper steward over what I've already been given. I gave a talk on obedience, and I felt the immediate effects of the lack of my own testimony. I've always been good and obedient, but i can say I've not sought out the Lord's command, and I realized I NEED to fulfil what I've been sent to do! Baptize!!!
The service in the areas is really improving; we find a lot of personal projects; we are getting more and more service opportunities, but there seems to be an imbalance in how the service transfers to the stake service coordinators. We hope to allow the stake and branch to come and participate; I would almost rather they took over the project. I hope they don't have to wait for exact commands to go forward with just serve.
Anyways, the second exchange was with the Hayward 1st elders, E Parker and Gillie; I went with Elder Parker in the Chinese area. I hope I can get more opportunities to work with Elders liek elder Parker, he was supportive and experienced as we went through the long day! There were many situations where I felt like I was breaking and couldn't take the pressure; planning and study felt so ineffective because I haven't had meaningful planning and study in such a long time. But working with Elder Parker did help a lot, and just being able to speak English normally was very relaxing! I know the planning needs to improve, but sometimes I don't know how! I'm realizing all these lessons, all these things I'm trying to accomplish are essential, but the way we accomplish it, how, is much more important. So Elder Parker let me see for myself how I should be conducting myself. We had meaningful English class and finding, and despite the car crash we had, and all the chaos, we had a very productive day! GONG XI FA TSAI Happy Chinese new year
A question on exchanges; how involved should I be in another area's planning? I mean I want to see and evaluate their planning, but I also want to help them. What parts should I be involved in?