Simeon Says ...

Elder Simeon at the Zone Conference in Smyrna

So this week was work, work and more work.  But, hey, like President Ezra T. Benson said, "there is no greater cure for missionary work than more work."  We still have not taught anyone else a lesson because they either forget their appointment with us or dodge us, but hey, we will get them and all of them, too. I was studying one night and came across an old paper I had once received from a former West Indies Mission President and as I was giving it a look over I stumbled across a quote by Elder George Q. Cannon which said, "I have sufficient experience in my life to know that for a man to impart profitable instruction unto his fellow creatures in the capacity of a teacher, he must have the aid of the Spirit of God. Without that he cannot impart that which would be of permanent profit for anyone. I cannot tell your feelings, I do not know your hearts. There may be secret sorrows, there may be grief, there may be doubts, there may be things that oppress you in your feelings of which I am totally ignorant. But the spirit knows all things of God and he can, through his Holy Spirit impart to each one that portion of strength, of comfort, of light which each soul may need to strengthen it on its onward journey in the path which God our Father has marked out for us to pursue. And unless a meeting of this kind is attended with these effects, it is to me exceedingly unsatisfactory." 

As I read this I realized he was right.  Without the Holy Spirit we would not know where to go or what to say to persons as we meet them or knock on their doors. It is by following those promptings we receive the guidance from our Heavenly Father as to what to say or do.  When we follow this counsel, it not only blesses us but those we teach or share the gospel with, as well. So as long as we continue to work and do so by the Holy Spirit we will find, we will teach and we will baptize.  The same applies to every single one of us as it says in Mosiah, "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." 

So let's help others put off the natural man and become saints in the eyes of Our Heavenly Father and remember to follow those promptings we receive from the Holy Spirit.  They do guide us in the right paths.