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hey everyone so this week was a really good week down here in Chile with a lot of things that went on. On Monday, we had our mission conference with 9 different zones. On Wednesday, we had a special Conference with the whole mission and a special guest speaker...Elder Dallin H. Oaks! We arrived at the mission office in Viña around 7:30ish in the morning and then checked all of our extra stuff into a room. All we could take in the chapel was our scriptures, Preach my Gospel, and a notebook to take notes as well as our hymnbook. We all got lined up for the picture with all 180 of us missionaries and awaited the arrival of the Apostle. Well when he and his wife as well as Elder Corbrige (of the 70) and his wife, and Pres and Sister Wilhelm, we all started singing our Mission Hymn. It was so sweet to see an Apostle so close! At the end of the hymn, he said Gracias. We then took the photo and were able to "bump elbows" with him. we werent allowed to shake his hand because of the H1N1 thing going around...but still it was pretty sweet. In the meeting, i was seated on the front row. That was pretty cool as well. They spoke to us in english and had their translators for the latins. Sister Oaks spoke about the name "Elder" that we carry and that it is the same as Elders Corbrige and Oaks...She said how important it was and what all it meant. She then left us with a quote from the MTC that says, "Be the missionary your mother thinks you are." Elder Oaks talked first about the mantle or title of Apostle and that we dont respect the person who has the title, but the title itself. We spend our whole lives trying to fill our mantle and likewise, we spend our whole missions trying to fill our "mission mantle." He then spoke about tithing and how we could teach it a bit better to our investigators. He came down and stood in front of the white board. (He was right in front of me. I could have tripped him if i wanted to haha). He wrote this on the board..." 90% + Blessings is greater than 100% w/o Blessings." After that, he then shared with us what exactly we do as missionaries. He talked about the name that we carry. It is Jesus Christ. But all throughout the scriptures, we read that it says, "In the name of Jesus Christ"...but what exactly does "the name" mean? He then shared with us a few scriptures that showed what exactly it meant. After 5 or 6 scriptures, he summed it all up...that "the name" of Jesus Christ is His Gospel, His Atonement, His Essence. And that when we take the Sacrament, when is says that we are willing to take upon us the name of Christ, it means that we are willing to be exaulted, or that we are willing to receive Exaltation.It was really deep for me at first but then after thinking about it it really made sense. I had always thought that a misisonary had it easy to take upon him the name of Jesus Christ because we have our plaques with His name on it...but Elder Oaks explained that it is so much more than just a plaque...it is Everything. He told us that it took him 50 years to figure that out and said that this little bit of information could give us a little head start in our study of the scriptures. He said after that that he hopes that we never read "the name of Jesus Christ" in the same way again. A day or so after, i realized how we close our prayers that we say...it really gave me more meaning to my prayers to know that we close our prayers by saying "in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." What an Experience!!!
Well a great happy late Father´s Day to all you dads. Take care!
chao, elder nelson
