Every day this week has taught me something new (like most days) so I thought I would give a quick recap of what I learned.
I somehow manage to make good connections to real world situations in lessons. In the MTC we do an activity where we role play a teaching situation and we have to relate as many random things to the gospel as we can, like a chair or a leaf or whatever it is. I always like to use an analogy to explain commandments. We are given commandments to protect us. They allow us to safely walk through some very tough and trying situations in life. A lineman (in America) is someone that works on our power distribution system (known as "the grid"). I know from personal experience how dangerous electricity can be, especially at high voltages. The power lines that distribute electricity across a nation operate at extremely high voltages to carry energy efficiently across thousands of miles. If a shock from a wall outlet (120 volts in America and 240 volts in England) is enough to kill in the right circumstance, how do they work on live transmission lines operating at >500,000 volts in some cases? They follow the rules. Without a path to ground, lineman can sit on transmission lines and work on things without any harm because there is no current flow. I've seen some cool videos at home of helicopters flying lineman up to power lines and dropping them off. God's commandments act in the same way as all the safety precautions lineman take. They keep us safe even in the most dangerous situations.
Sometimes I get carried away in technical analogies with too much math and logic because I forget to make it simple. The reaction I get is generally the same though so it's easy to catch. I've talked about this before but I love teaching this way because this is how Christ
taught- in parables. In the Bible and Book of Mormon, trees (fruit trees, olive trees) are a commonly used example to demonstrate gospel principles. I just like to try to use things I can relate to.
This past week we also had a funny experience with some missionaries in the zone. On Thursday nights we do a conference call as a zone and one of the companionships never called in. 10.30 comes around when we are supposed to be going to bed and they still haven't answered the phone, no one knows where they were so we called our mission president at around 10.45 and he told us to drive down there. We get there at 11.30 and ring the door bell for ages but no one answered still. Their car was there so we just left them a note and left. We didn't get to sleep until 1.00 AM that night which is way too late for us. We find out the next day that they were fine, they just fell asleep with the phone on silent. Oh well haha.
Upcoming this week we have two exchanges and more meetings. Woohoo!
Cheers!
Elder Spencer Ammermon
England London Mission
64-68 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road
South Kensington
London
England SW7 2PA