March 14, 2016

So... This week I went to Prague again, to complete my Visa Work, I'm officially a resident teď (now), and I'm serving as the Fist councelor in the Branch presidency as I mentioned last week. We were there a long part of the day, it takes 2.5 hours to travel to Prague and then 2.5 back... 5 hours of nothing but riding on a train on Tuesday, so our finding time and missionary time was shot on that day, but it was still an incredible day. Before Elder Pickett and I left Prague on Tuesday, I stayed in the Office after everyone had left because I wanted to ask President McConkie a question. He was in the restroom so Elder Pickett and I waited in the lobby area, and I remember rehersing in my mind how I wanted to tell him that I would like to talk to him for a few minutes, and then when he came out, I said, "President, do you have a few minutes I'd like to ask you a question." "sure Elder Dean, come on in." he told me. He walked me into his office and I told him, "President, my question... I want to know..." and tears came, "I want to know how I can overcome Doubt." "Doubt?" he asked. "What is the nature of your Doubt? Whether or not the church is true or... what?" I explained to him that over the last couple of weeks/days, I have been having doubts come into my head about whether or not the Church is actually true. I had been having doubts, and thoughts like, "do you really think that Joseph smith was a prophet of God?" or "you really think this church is true? you are only feeling fake made up emotions, and this is just a big scam." or "all this crap in the past that you called the spirit, it's just emotions. If God was real, he would reveal himself to you! When they say 'trust in God's timing' they are really just fooling you by making you think that the next lucky time when a Prayer is 'answered' is in 'god's timing' but it's only chance, and that's how the church fools you". and I had thoughts like that. But President McConkie was able to see right though me, and he said, "Elder Dean, do you think that Doubt is a bad thing?" "yes" I said through some tears. "Well it's not... Do you think that God thinks Doubt is a bad thing?" he asked. Then I said, "yeah... well, not any more I guess seeing as you just told me that it isn't." President then turned with me to the BOM where it says that faith is not a perfect knowledge. "Faith is not a perfect knowledge," he told me. "Faith always includes a percentage of doubt, otherwise it would be a perfect knowledge." That made sense to me... "Elder Dean, what is the most Spiritual Experience that you have ever had?" I thought about it for a minute, and then I said, "When I Baptized my little sister." He then asked, "why? what did you learn from that experience?" I thought about that for a second and then said, "I knew that Jesus Christ was real, because I felt like I was litterally standing in His Place, and that I was doing Exactly what he would have been doing." "Okay so you learned that 'Jesus christ is a real person', what else did you learn?" he asked. "I learned, that Baptism was real." I said, then President asked, "Okay, so you Learned that the Baptism was real, that the authority is real... That authority that you hold. How did you know that?" I thought again... then said, "Because I was baptizing my sister, and I just knew it was for her, and she's my family." "so you learned that Familes are forever." he said. "yeah." I agreed. President McConkie then drew a line on a piece of paper, and then lifted the shapie for a second and then continued to draw the line. "In our lives, we live by faith, but sometimes, Gaps occur, and we need to recall on past experience to strengthen us through our times of doubt." he said. This principle is true, I know that it is true, becasue I can call on past spiritual experiences like when I baptized my wonderful sister to support me through those times when I may doubt the truthfullness of the Gospel. If you want spiritual Experiences... have them. pray for them, and make sacrifices in your lives, and ask to be Humbled enough to accept God's will, and to ever have it become our will. that takes time... an entire lifetime to be exact, and even after death we'll continue to develope our faith. Fascinating... Love you all, sorry for not having much other that this for my weekly email. Elder Dean. Below... Check out this Naměstí here in CBud!