Apr 2, 2013 Easter Devotional Wk 9

And so, another week has passed on! All the missionaries we came in with have now left the MTC, so it's just the 12 of us and a whole bunch of missionaries who have spent considerably less time here than us.  It's interesting to remember that just a few months ago here at the MTC, 12 weeks was absolutely normal. Our scheduled grammer and vocabulary assignments are done so during our 2-3 hours of language study a day, we ask the teachers questions, memorize random words that we hear, search through the dictionary and so forth. 

A few days ago my teacher went to lds.org and then to the conference talks. Apparently, all of the talks that are translated are sitting right there online for anyone that wants to hear them. If y'all want, I'm sure you could look them up in like two minutes. Anyway, we listened to several of them and they are really hard to follow. Khmer takes several more syllables to say each word than English does, so in order to translate for a speaker who is speaking at a normal pace, the translaters have to speak really fast. All in all, I'm glad I'll be here for conference rather than in Cambodia. I might understand a few of the talks here.

 Sunday was our special Easter devotional. Bishop Causse of the presiding bishopric came and spoke in our Mission Conference, which was really great, and then later we had Sister Sheri Dew, who used to be in the General Relief Society Presidency. They were awesome. For obvious reasons, a large portion of their remarks was focused on the Atonement and Resurrection of Christ. It was really great.

 As part of my personal study, I went looking through old talks by Bruce R. McConkie. I don't know how familiar with him the younger kids are, but he was an apostle in the 70s-80s and an immensely powerful speaker and writer. About two weeks before he died, and after stuggling with colon cancer for a very long time, Elder McConkie gave his testimony of Jesus Christ and His Atonement in General Conference in a talk titled "The Purifying Power of Gethsemane":

"And now, as pertaining to this perfect atonement, wrought by the shedding of the blood of God—I testify that it took place in Gethsemane and at Golgotha, and as pertaining to Jesus Christ, I testify that he is the Son of the Living God and was crucified for the sins of the world. He is our Lord, our God, and our King. This I know of myself independent of any other person.

I am one of his witnesses, and in a coming day I shall feel the nail marks in his hands and in his feet and shall wet his feet with my tears.

But I shall not know any better then than I know now that he is God’s Almighty Son, that he is our Savior and Redeemer, and that salvation comes in and through his atoning blood and in no other way.

God grant that all of us may walk in the light as God our Father is in the light so that, according to the promises, the blood of Jesus Christ his Son will cleanse us from all sin."

 This was a man of great faith, a faith that I hope to have someday. And though I don't have a perfect faith, I don't doubt for a minute that Christ is our Savior, that he died for us and that he wants each and every one of us to be happy and accept His teachings and follow Him.  I'm excited to be able to share this message in just a short time with the people of Cambodia.

 We should have our travel plans this Thursday or maybe Friday and we are all pretty stoked. And why not right? It was Ammon who said pertaining to missionary work that "there never were men that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the world began" (Alma 26:35) and that is so true. Out of time here, but I'll probably write to y'all soon!   Love, Elder Vore