Email to Family and Friends
I would like to make a slight correction to my last email, I was told 3 different transfer news, haha I didn't know what it was tell I call President directly. I am not training, but my new companion has been out almost as long as I have. He is from Thatcher, AZ. Haha he is a goofball! He has the best dry humor.
On our way up to Lovell, WY to drop Elder Lester off for transfers, haha how do I say this... WE HIT A DEER!! These things are evil!! They will just jump out at you while your going 60 miles an hour on an icy road in packs or herds what ever you call them haha. Luckily I slightly swerved through them and just wacked one in the head with my drivers side mirror. Elder Lester and I had a good laugh though. Especially as not even two minutes later after that another one jumps right out in front of us! Haha good times, good times.
There was a big storm that hit our mission, we were told to stay in our house as much as possible. Soooo Elder Simmons and I went biking in it haha, but to be fair Thermopolis wasn't hit to bad. It only got down to the -20's.
The day before the storm we helped Lori and Lane load up and unload 8 TONS of hay haha. The picture doesn't do it justice. Haha we'll get to do it again in 3 weeks :) It's been a fun week!
"Servant Leadership"
For a few days in this past week, I had the privilege of spending a few days with my Zone Leaders as I awaited the arrival of my new companion. While I was there I was blessed to have great conversations with my newest Zone Leader, Elder Tucker. This man is a leader, he knows how to make everyone feel special. That's how I want to be. So of course I want to know how. We talked about two topics more than the rest. The first is that the true leader lives by the Golden Rule.
The people who everyone look up to treat people with kindness and respect. They know each person is a child of Heavenly Father with divine potential for whom the Savior suffered and died. President Ezra Taft Benson taught that the Golden Rule is “the formula for successful relationships with others” (1)
The second is one I really enjoyed learning more about, it being something that was highly discussed back home in Life Leadership. It is the ideal of servant leadership. I was reading a talk by Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone of the Seventy entitled, The Incomparable Christ: Our Master and Model. And in it he said "We will find that those who have the most profound impact on our lives are those who use their leadership roles to serve. Those who are selfish, arrogant, or prideful are loathe to serve but quick to seize power. They love control, domination, and obedience by compulsion. …"
"Servant leadership is based on a profound respect for the children of men. It requires leadership traits that do not demean, debase, or otherwise cause those we lead to feel inferior. Servant leadership lifts, blesses, and changes lives in a positive way."
"Servant-leaders exercise the following traits and practices in their roles. They:
•Understand the value of every human soul.
•Have an inborn or developed sense of caring for others.
•Are quick to volunteer to take pressure off someone else.
•Rush to the aid of someone who is going through an embarrassing or humiliating experience.
•Treat all people on a basis of equality.
•Do not feel that tasks they expect others to do are too demeaning for themselves.
•Are not offended by disruptions of people who are themselves going through emotional traumas or stress.
•Expect more from themselves than they do from anyone else.
•Are quick to compliment, give credit, and build up those who perform a given task.
•Judge people by their potential, not necessarily by one single negative experience.
•Do not take credit for someone else’s achievements and love to share credit for any of their own accomplishments.
•Get the facts before finding fault or criticizing another person.
•Help all people feel they had a real part in the success of a project.
•Detest practical jokes or statements that focus humiliation or attention on one soul.
•Always constructively criticize in private and compliment in public.
•Are absolutely honest in their work.
•Are equally fair with all under their direction.
•Are always willing to listen to both sides of a quarrel, discussion, or issue. They know it is a pretty thin pancake that has only one side. …
•Make themselves accessible to all, not just those with position or power."
Something I have been doing, and that I would encourage all of you to do, is just focus on one of these bullet points and just for today, do your best to apply it. I can promise you that as you do so, you will see a more Christlike son or daughter of God in the mirror. Any problems or issues you are having now will seem minor. You will start to receive grace for grace, until you are "purified even as he is pure." (2)
God knows us and loves us, that is why we call him Father. He wants us to live up to our fullest potential. And only he knows how great we become, that is why he is so patient with us, and that is why we should be more patient with others and with ourselves. Let us not waste away our lives, may each and everyone of us repent and "come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny [ourselves] of all ungodliness, [that we may be] sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, that [we may] become holy, without spot." (3) In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, amen.
Elder Philip R. Bredsguard
917 Amoretti St Thermopolis, WY 82443
Notes
- The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson [1988], 447
- Moroni 7:48
- Moroni 10:32-33
