Elder Braden Toma's Mission Blog: February 10, 2018 Call to be a new Zone Leader

Dear Family,

This week was a pretty good week. Carnival has started so the work has slowed down and everyone is travelling.

Last week was a tough week but it was like my Zion’s camp.

Zion’s camp has become one of my favorite events because of what I have learned from it. It was when Joseph smith sent a bunch of men to go win back Zion, they had to travel days to get there and when they finally got there, he decided that they weren’t going to fight. And what happened is many of the men fell away from the church because of that, they became frustrated. But the men that stayed faithful later became apostles and leaders in the church. I saw a quote that brother Schetselaar has on his email that states "we can´t control the wind, but we can adjust the sail" - Thomas. S Monson. It’s true that we can’t control everything but it’s how we deal with it that controls our destiny.

Yesterday afternoon president Taylor called me and told me that I was going to be transferred and be the new zone leader in Boa Vista. I was surprised because I only have one transfer in this area but now I’m being transferred, he congratulated me and told me that the zone leaders will call and give me more details.

I’m pretty excited to have the opportunity to learn new stuff, I heard that my area is good and that my companion Elder Duarte is good too. I’ll be arriving there tomorrow so next week will send more details.

This week I was reading the Book of Mormon, I’m now in Moroni chapter 7, but I was reading in ether early and something that really marked me was the faith of the Jaredites. I mean they made entered boats and then trusted in the Lord to guide them. That is some real faith! just imagine, I would be so scared to do something like that. During their travels there were storms too.

I was really inspired by the faith that they had. In Doctrine and Covenants 4:2 it says "O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all thy heart, might, mind, and strength,

that ye may stand blameless before God in the last day" I thought about what embark could really mean. To me it doesn’t mean have one foot on the land and the other in the boat but to embark and be fully in the boat. I see that with many missionaries that are trunky ha-ha, they focus on going home rather than focusing on the service of God. To me the Jaredites really embarked and trusted in the Lord. Sometimes we get scared, before the mission I never wanted to talk about our religion or even share it because I was scared. But we need to embark into our boats and trust in the Lord that he will guide us, just like the Jaredites did. I love the scripture in D&C 6 that says "Look unto me in every thought, doubt not; fear not"

They mission is a perfect example of embarking in the service of God but the thing is that the mission ends faster than we know it and sometimes we tell ourselves that it’s over, that we already embarked but that’s wrong, for we have not yet reached the promised land. Missionary work should never have an end point in our lives. The purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel. That can be anything. Making friends in the Church, helping reactivate less actives and sharing the gospel with those that don´t have this restored gospel.

IM grateful for this gospel, for a living church. We have living prophets and apostles, the authority and priesthood keys. ITs a living church, not a dead one. Missionary work is what helps the kingdom grow. Like I said during our skype "we aren’t climbing then we are falling" I think that’s interesting how that works, serving helps us the kingdom climb but it also helps us too.