I Am Thankful For Prayer

May 26, 2007 It’s interesting that the Sunday I spoke just before leaving to my mission
here in South Africa, I was assigned to speak on prayer. Something that would seem
so simple. Now 8 months later as I look back at all of the investigators I have had or
that other missionaries have had I can link back almost all of their progression or not
progressing to prayer. Just the other day we met an investigator who we have been
seeing for a few months. We committed him long ago to read, study, ponder and pray
to know if the Book of Mormon and the Church were true…as we do with almost every
appointment. I asked him –Ryan, did you pray about the Book of Mormon? Ryan said
yes but he didn’t get an answer. Well Ryan, when was the last time you read the Book of
Mormon? About a week or two ago. Than I think to myself, no duh! You didn’t get an
answer. It has occurred to me that sincere prayer is something that takes up most of your
day or even most of your week or month. Every time someone is not progressing it’s
because they are not sincerely praying. That means they are not studying and learning
about the church or thinking about our message. 

I remember Neeba, my first baptism, when we taught, how he was excited and asked questions. When we would come back he would bring friends and type up reports about what he learned from his study of the scriptures. He received answers to his prayers because he was sincere and put forth effort. It’s difficult to get everyone to do that. It’s great to see the progress of the people I worked with in my first area. Neeba was baptized in Jan. just before his 18th Shortly after that he received the Aaronic Priesthood. Then he baptized a good friend of  his and taught his two younger brothers and brought them to church each week as well as his mom. He gave us referrals like crazy and asked  us for Book of Mormons to give to people he was sharing the gospel with. He brought friends and family to his house for us to teach. He went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead even though he could not afford the 8 hour trip. He has now receive the Melchezedik priesthood and is preparing
each day to serve a mission; When he turns 19…this is someone who 6 months ago had
not heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Archie whose wife and daughter had been members for 1 year was baptized just the last
week or two before I left Dwesi. He now has the Melchezedik Priesthood as well and
is the Young Men’s President. There are so many good things happening. Those good
things happen because of sincere prayer and action on answers and promptings to those
prayers. The better we can master communication between us and our Father in Heaven,
the better we can fulfill our purpose here on this earth and the better we can help others
fulfill their purpose. 

 Oooh, mom and dad…mission is crazy. I’m still the same Bryce, but I’m different. The gospel is so simple..but it’s so complicated. Things are so easy, but they’re so difficult….it is a great thought. I meet so many crazy people all the time and see the strangest things. It just happens so much that it doesn’t even faze me.
 It’s crazy to think about the relationship we all had in the spirit world and what we were all like, and what we all did to be blessed with knowing and accepting truth.

Nativities

Bryce could not leave the Nativities that were placed around our house during Christmas alone.  He was always rearranging them.  One day I stopped to look at one that was in the entrance way of our front door.  I noticed Baby Jesus was under his nativity set and that everyone above him was in peculiar groupings.  They were all wondering where Baby Jesus was.  I had to take a picture.  Later, I found Bryce had gone around and taken all the animals from the different sets and placed them in a circle surrounding one of the Baby Jesus.  I was wishing he would just leave the sets alone but now I am wishing I had taken more pictures of his arrangements.  He had too much time on his hands!