Elder Seth Probert has a new address - 10027 Glenn Ave Glen St. Mary, FL. 32040
The latest e-mail we received from Elder Probert concerns hard work and he writes us the following.
" Well, Family, what great joy fills my soul right now as I have worked harder then I ever had in my life. This week has been INCREDIBLE and I am so grateful to Heavenly Father for it!!
I finished my week out on campus which was great of course. Elder Walker(the elderly missionary) took me to his room and told me President Newman had his eye on me to do great things in the mission, and told me how I did A LOT for the institute and brought an incredible spirit there, and he told me to stay humble and obedient. Hit me very hard to hear that from SUCH a wise man."
He goes on to say in relation to hat an Assistant to the President todl them; "Everyone BETTER be tired, if you're not, you're not working hard enough" Then he told this very inspiring story on how he went hunting with his dad early in the morning one day and his dad sent him another way to find some deer, well, he had this huge heavy gun with him and it was way dark and he was climbing this VERY STEEP MOUNTAIN, well after about a little over a mile, he was dying, he had thoughts of quiting like 30 times..just a BUNCH of thoughts everywhere telling him to stop. He's like.."I could just leave the gun on this bush, then climb the rest of the way" or "I could just sleep right here because i'm exhausted and noone would ever no, I could jsut tell my dad I didn't find any deer" After thinking much, he decided to push through the pain and anguish and continue climbing...FINALLY he got to the top just before sunrise and as the sun shone over the mountain he saw 100's of deer over this great valley!!!!1 He climbed to the top of the mountain pervevering through everything and didn't quite and was able to reap the rewards!"
Then he mentions to the family "I know you're probably like...well Elder Proberts on a mission so he has that drive, NO everyone can have it and needs to have it! It's not just a few select people, it's everyone. We need to constantly be doing something that will increase our faith in Christ and strengthen us in this great gospel. WORK family, there is no substitute, when you're tired, work harder!!!"
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I loved Seth's email. I had to chuckle, though, at how much he used the word "work" because one of the biggest knocks on the Church I hear from our critics is that Mormons believe in a "works-based gospel"--that is, not salvation through faith/grace but works. They think we believe that we can actually contribute to our salvation.
Of course, we too believe that salvation is a free gift from Christ--and it's his gift 100%. We can't earn a gift. But we must accept the gift by responding appropriately to the gosepl message, including faith, repentance, baptism, and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. (Most Christians would agree with faith and repentance, but some view "baptism" as a work. We view it as a way to enter the saving covenant with Christ).
I've come to the conclusion that our works are not a part of the salvation equation in any way, if we're defining salvation like most traditional Christians, as a finite moment in time when we actually accept Christ's gift and not as a future event yet to come. (Both "saved" in the past tense and "salavation" in the present/future tense are both scriptural).
However, our works are most definitely a part of our life after our conversion. True saving faith is evidenced by works. I think most Christians who truly know their own doctrine will agree with this. And in my experience, it is the truly converted who do the most "work". This is true for missionaries too, as well as Christians in general.
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