Tracting: Sometimes It Works

Our mission has been setting goals to talk to as many people as we can. Due to this, me and my companion decided to do some tracting this week. Tracting is not a very common finding activity in this mission, and we tend to focus on most of the other ways of finding. However, we decided we would tract a street, using the upcoming Family History Event to our advantage. The success we met was incredible! We only had about an hour or less to tract, but we were able to talk to 5 different sets of people, and one of them accepted our invitation to learn more about our Church and how to strengthen your relationship with Jesus Christ.

We also decided to just walk around a major retail store, to just see if anybody would start a conversation with us. We can't really start them ourselves there, because of legal stuff, and our plan was to just have a random conversation, not even necessarily about the Gospel, unless it leads to that. Unfortunately, we were approached by an employee, then the Asset Protection Manager, telling us we weren't allowed to solicit there. Now I know we aren't solicitors, and I already said that we hadn't talked to anybody except for people we knew, but we didn't want to start an argument, so we ended up just leaving. In essence, we almost got kicked out of a retail store. That's alright, because a less-active couple that was there invited us to their place once we got the boot!

Now back to the positive: B came with a non-member friend to church, and she invited another friend to take the lessons, who was curious. This lady has been a member for 10 months, and she is on fire! She fasted every Sunday while she was working at a job that disallowed her to go to church on Sundays, and she has been hounding the bishop for a calling, which she finally got! She is getting her Patriarchal Blessing on November 1st, and she goes to the temple regularly! "Verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be like unto [B], behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever, yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men."

I have learned a very important lesson on my mission. It is found in D&C 82:10: "I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." Another important scripture for this lesson is D&C 130:20-21: "There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—

And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."

When we are obedient, we can ask the Lord for help. I'm not saying that you cannot ask for forgiveness while trapped in sin that you are trying to break out of, but rather that there is extra power and blessings to those who keep that law. They are blessing unavailable to a sinful person, because that person is not in a position to receive them. If you are struggling with the trials of life, I invite you to examine your obedience to the Lord. If you choose to obey, and become more obedient, the Lord will bless you in ways that weren't possible before. You can go to your Father in Heaven in confidence and faith, knowing that you've done all you can do. He will help you overcome your trials. The same is true with sin and addiction: start by being obedient to the commandments that you can be obedient to, and as you exercise that small particle of faith, ask the Lord for help, knowing that you've done the most you can right now. He'll help you do even more, then even more. I know that the Atonement is real, and that we can be clean and live with our Father in Heaven, if we just listen and obey Him, and I say that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Until next week, just keep soldiering on.

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The Lord's Soldier,

                      Elder Jacob C. Tibbitts