Well, this one should be short because you've just heard from me like 3 days ago, but we had some crazy occurrences.
Mostly, Elder Bednar came to our mission. That was pretty freaking amazing.
It would be hard to condense all the things he said into one email, so I won't try (although he did prophecy, and that was awesome. There's something cool about an actually Prophet prophesying right in front of you) but I wanted to share one cool insight.
He told us one time that he was meeting with a group of inactive RM's in a stake somewhere in the US. He walked in and stood at the pulpit and asked how he could help. He opened it up to questions and made it a discussion format (which was how he taught us. SUPER cool). One brother stood up and told Elder Bednar that he had come across this Anti-mormon stuff that had shaken his testimony. Elder Bednar asked him how straight he would like his answer. The young man said he'd like it straight. Elder Bednar said "I've known about all of that stuff since I was 12 years old. Where have you been? Do you think the church has time to argue with all of that nonsense? Don't you think it should have a little more trust in it's return missionaries to study about it and find out for themselves that it's all bologna?"
We all proceeded to make sure our eyebrows were still there and that they hadn't been burned off, haha.
He went on to say that the issue this man had was not the anti-material. It was lack of studying the Book of Mormon. He said to us "It's like we're in a dark room, and the Lord gives us a flashlight, we turn it off and complain when we start bumping into the walls!" Then he said something that really stuck with me, in connection with that analogy "If sometime when you're home from your mission, you are really tired one night and you think to yourself 'oh, I'll just read tomorrow', I hope my voice right now comes back and haunts you and says to you 'You Idiot! (yes, he did say idiot) You're turning off the flashlight! DON'T turn off the flashlight!'"
Haha, I hope you can imagine all of his quotes in full rebuke form, because it was really powerful. But what was most incredible about his rebukes is that every single one was done in such a humble, sincere, loving way that is impossible to describe. Whenever someone had concerns or questions, you could tell he had such a valiant love for that person. For all of us really. I'll never forget it.
But that's my advice to you all! DON'T turn off the flashlight!
I love you all!
Church is true!
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