Missionary Zeal

On Sunday I received an assignment to teach Sunday School for the 15 and 16-year-olds in my ward (local congregation) for the next six weeks while their teacher recovers from a broken leg.

My response when asked if I would accept this assignment?

"YES!!" 

*fist pump* 

 (Yes, I really did that.)

I think I surprised my leaders a little bit with my enthusiasm.

This is one of the reasons I know that God wants me to go on a mission--I have felt much more of a desire lately to teach the gospel and share the knowledge I have gained of my Savior, Jesus Christ. I have felt especially drawn to help the youth realize what great things are expected of them and help them come to know Christ as I have. It is so, so important that these young people become converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and live its teachings, especially with missions looming years sooner in their future. I am grateful for the chance to teach them and learn from them in return. As the Sunday School president said when he extended the assignment to me, "This timing was not a coincidence." I am to use the weeks remaining to me before my mission to teach and strengthen the youth in our ward in the gospel.

Tonight in my mission preparation class at Institute (religion classes for young adults) our teacher had a slideshow with some questions we might run into while we're on our mission. These included things like "Why did your church practice polygamy?" "Why couldn't blacks hold the priesthood?" "Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?" and the like. It's super fun--I'm in this class with a bunch of young men that are two and three years younger than I am (although we just acquired a few more young women), and so I've had a little more time and life experience to study and ponder and find some of the answers to these questions, and I found myself raising my hand to give insight to nearly every question. (I'd like to post some of these questions and my insights on here in the next couple days.) My classmates laughed a few times at how detailed I was in my references--"a walking library of gospel knowledge" I believe was the term someone used for me.

I've been called a walking library before, incidentally. I'm sure you can see why. :)

That exercise was really fun and enlightening, but afterward I stopped to reflect a little bit. I think sometimes I am perhaps a little over-zealous in my excitement to share with others the things that I have learned. I hope I didn't offend anyone in my eagerness to add to the discussion tonight. My friend Michael wrote a post the other day about his thoughts on the missionary ages, and in it he said that on his mission to Canada he was able to have a much better spirit in sharing our beliefs when he didn't have his own knowledge to rely on and instead was forced to rely on the Holy Ghost.

This reminds me of a scripture in the Book of Mormon where a man named Zeniff was anxious to go with his people and re-posses the land that their ancestors had lived on from their enemies, a people called the Lamanites. In Mosiah 9:3 he says,

And yet, I being ^aover-zealous to inherit the land of our fathers, collected as many as were desirous to go up to possess the land, and started again on our ^bjourney into the wilderness to go up to the land; but we were smitten with famine and sore afflictions; for we were slow to remember the Lord our God.

I believe my enthusiasm is good, definitely, and I should share the knowledge that God has given me so that others may learn and be edified. However, I must not be "over-zealous" or "slow to remember the Lord our God." I must not be so anxious to share what I know that I crowd out the Spirit and fail to let the Lord speak for Himself by letting the Holy Ghost testify of truth.

Number one rule of missionary work: Quench not the Spirit.

Because without the Spirit, I'm just going to be walking around for the next 18 months. I will absolutely fail in my purpose if I do not have the Holy Ghost, because it is the Spirit, not my words, that change the hearts of men and women.

I'm grateful that I get a reminder every once in awhile.

Images from here, here, and here.