4 Minutes

Carissimi,

The subject line will connect a few dots throughout this email, but first and foremost, it should only take you about 4 minutes to catch up on my life!

Tuesday morning featured Zone Conference once again here in the one and only Nap-Town! This meant hearing from Presidente and Sorella Pickerd, who shared respective messages on the Restoration, and obedience and submission to our fathers will in terms of conduct and dress. As a result, I've spent several hours reviewing the Restoration in my studies this week, in an attempt to become a better teacher of this unique message. Similarly, I've reviewed the Missionary Handbook, looking for both my strengths as an obedient missionary, and the shortcomings I admittedly have. I enjoyed looking for these shortcomings, connected with the desire to have "No Ragrets," at the end of my mission (see attached photo for those of you who didn't understand the reference). Now, I don't believe there's a missionary who has ever served a mission, who looked back declaring they had no regrets about their service, but as I have begun to list the regrets I do have, I notice many of the troubles at which I've faltered in the past year and change, no longer trouble me. Reflection, while certainly evoking remorse, or godly sorrow at the mistakes we've made, and the sins we have committed, has the similar purpose of allowing us to see how far we've come. Thank goodness I can say I'm not the Anziano Toronto who set off to the MTC. December 28th, 2016, I'm him, with a year's worth of repentance, a years worth of dedicated gospel study, a years worth of the impact preaching a message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has, which is to say, immeasurable. While those changes in me have not come in an instant, they've come, they keep coming, and will continue to come so long as I allow God to shape and use me as an instrument in his hands!

Roger Bannister and Elder Gary Stevenson:
Most of you saw those two names and had one of two reactions... The first, "Who is Roger Bannister?" and the second, (if you already knew who he was), "What does he have to do with that particular apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ?" Well in fact, both men were key in the presentation of our training, offered shortly after those of President and Sister Pickerd. Roger Bannister, for those of you still confused, did what no man had ever done before him, and ran a mile in under 4 minutes, 3:59.4 to be exact. He did so contrary to common belief at the time, that man wasn't meant to run a sub 4 minute mile, and nor would he ever do so. On a windy day in 1954, Roger Bannister blew that misconception outta the water, and in doing so, changed the mile race forever. Today the record stands at 3:43.13, and over 20,000 individuals have broken the 4 minute barrier in recorded history. The difference was, they knew the mile had been run in less than 4 minutes, and so, they could do the same. Taking this story as a background we taught the Anziani and Sorelle of the Zone about the four minutes that they had in the mission. Now Elder Stevenson comes in, as we referenced his general conference address entitled, " Your Four Minutes." We talked of the precious resource that is, the Lord's time. We did the math, and found out I only had 1 min and 37 sec left remaining in my 4 min, and that others in the zone had more or less depending on time spent in the mission. We then gave the challenge, "To become the first Zone since 1987 or so, to achieve 1 baptism, per companionship, per transfer..." Unfortunately, you'll just have to stay tuned as we work our tails off trying to accomplish this Herculean feat!

What are the 4 minute barriers in your life, and what is it that's preventing you from overcoming them? I enjoyed knocking down barriers this week, and even getting knocked down myself just a little bit in the process! I hope you will too!

I wish you all the absolute best!

Anziano Toronto II 🇮🇹

Zone Conference pics and the "Gray Suit Squad"