These Are Our Days!
Dear Elders and Sisters:
What a privilege and pleasure to be with you in Zone Conference this past week! Sister Clark and I truly love being with you and feeling of your great spirits and love for the Savior and His great work we are engaged in. I was particularly touched by the accounts in Zone Conference of how sacrifice had brought forth the blessings of Heaven and noted many accounts of this nature in your letters this week. Many of them were a result of "sacrificing" watching Saturday General Conference, unless you had an investigator, and the blessings and tender mercies poured out upon you, your companionships and areas, and this mission are such a testimony builder of the principle of sacrifice. Truly, "Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of Heaven!"
I was very well pleased with their training on effective DWMs and trust you will act upon their challenge and mine. Just as a reminder, you accepted their challenge to share long, well prepared, inspired DWMs and follow up within a week. And my challenge was to develop five Interlude Teachings between now and the end of the transfer that you will use, refine, and perfect as DWM lessons, beginning now. That brings me to Sister Clark's fantastic teaching during Interviews on teaching more effectively with an outline. I trust you recognize her outline will transcend most any teaching - Interlude Teaching, DWM, to Sacrament Meeting talk and beyond. Please accept and follow her instruction and counsel! It will certainly bless your life but most importantly will bless your investigators' and members' lives as you teach. Above all, it will bless the Holy Ghost to more easily do His great work of taking doctrinal truths and principles into the hearts of all who hear your message.
Last fall we reviewed the year and determined that the Lord would likely be "pleased" with our Mission. As we concluded that assessment, we made a determination to do, even sacrifice, whatever was necessary to seek His approval of "Well Pleased". Each week our finding increases, our Key Indicators increase and I observe a Mission full of faithful servants who seek to live their Missionary Purpose. And while our baptisms may have dipped in March, I know it to be short lived because I feel and sense the fire in your bones! April will be a month to remember as we exercise great faith and diligence, and it will require an extra measure of each, upon a bedrock foundation of exact obedience coupled with a willingness to sacrifice in order to baptize 70 people.
I know we can "accomplish" this if we will "do" all the things the Lord requires - be faithful, diligent, exactly obedient, and willing to sacrifice! I think this is a wonderful time and in times like these I promise if you will be all in and fully invested, you will not only accomplish these goals we've set but you will learn and experience something(s) that can be taught by the Lord in the storm of adversity and challenge only to those willing to Press Forward. Nephi and his family, after following the strict instructions of the Lord, not only to build but how to build a ship, crossed the ocean to obtain a Land of Promise. It was true as well with the Brother of Jared in a like and similar pattern and Noah as well. The Lord will provide to those who are faithful, diligent, exactly obedient, and willing to sacrifice!!!! It is a theme and story repeated throughout the scriptures for our edification and benefit, today!! Let's go forward and experience it!
In Helaman chapter 7, verses 7-9 we find what is known as Nephi's lament. Nephi, troubled by the wickedness of the people, prays in his garden tower to the Lord lamenting and then being consigned that "these are my days!" And then goes forth to do a marvelous work and a wonder. Even before Dr. Craig Manning, as heard in our recent Zone Conference, here is Nephi teaching us about "relevant cues"! I love the resolve that comes from Nephi and choose to adopt it for the Mission now - "These Are Our Days!" These Are Our Days Elders and Sisters! And we have all the skill to be artisans and "molten", as did the Brother of Jared, Progressing and Potential Investigators so that the "Finger of the Lord" can touch them that they might be illuminated! I know this will happen with our collective faith and diligence on a foundation of exact obedience and sacrifice to find, teach repentance and baptize the best of converts! THESE ARE OUR DAYS!
With much love, esteem, and respect!
President Clark
What a privilege and pleasure to be with you in Zone Conference this past week! Sister Clark and I truly love being with you and feeling of your great spirits and love for the Savior and His great work we are engaged in. I was particularly touched by the accounts in Zone Conference of how sacrifice had brought forth the blessings of Heaven and noted many accounts of this nature in your letters this week. Many of them were a result of "sacrificing" watching Saturday General Conference, unless you had an investigator, and the blessings and tender mercies poured out upon you, your companionships and areas, and this mission are such a testimony builder of the principle of sacrifice. Truly, "Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of Heaven!"
I was very well pleased with their training on effective DWMs and trust you will act upon their challenge and mine. Just as a reminder, you accepted their challenge to share long, well prepared, inspired DWMs and follow up within a week. And my challenge was to develop five Interlude Teachings between now and the end of the transfer that you will use, refine, and perfect as DWM lessons, beginning now. That brings me to Sister Clark's fantastic teaching during Interviews on teaching more effectively with an outline. I trust you recognize her outline will transcend most any teaching - Interlude Teaching, DWM, to Sacrament Meeting talk and beyond. Please accept and follow her instruction and counsel! It will certainly bless your life but most importantly will bless your investigators' and members' lives as you teach. Above all, it will bless the Holy Ghost to more easily do His great work of taking doctrinal truths and principles into the hearts of all who hear your message.
Last fall we reviewed the year and determined that the Lord would likely be "pleased" with our Mission. As we concluded that assessment, we made a determination to do, even sacrifice, whatever was necessary to seek His approval of "Well Pleased". Each week our finding increases, our Key Indicators increase and I observe a Mission full of faithful servants who seek to live their Missionary Purpose. And while our baptisms may have dipped in March, I know it to be short lived because I feel and sense the fire in your bones! April will be a month to remember as we exercise great faith and diligence, and it will require an extra measure of each, upon a bedrock foundation of exact obedience coupled with a willingness to sacrifice in order to baptize 70 people.
I know we can "accomplish" this if we will "do" all the things the Lord requires - be faithful, diligent, exactly obedient, and willing to sacrifice! I think this is a wonderful time and in times like these I promise if you will be all in and fully invested, you will not only accomplish these goals we've set but you will learn and experience something(s) that can be taught by the Lord in the storm of adversity and challenge only to those willing to Press Forward. Nephi and his family, after following the strict instructions of the Lord, not only to build but how to build a ship, crossed the ocean to obtain a Land of Promise. It was true as well with the Brother of Jared in a like and similar pattern and Noah as well. The Lord will provide to those who are faithful, diligent, exactly obedient, and willing to sacrifice!!!! It is a theme and story repeated throughout the scriptures for our edification and benefit, today!! Let's go forward and experience it!
In Helaman chapter 7, verses 7-9 we find what is known as Nephi's lament. Nephi, troubled by the wickedness of the people, prays in his garden tower to the Lord lamenting and then being consigned that "these are my days!" And then goes forth to do a marvelous work and a wonder. Even before Dr. Craig Manning, as heard in our recent Zone Conference, here is Nephi teaching us about "relevant cues"! I love the resolve that comes from Nephi and choose to adopt it for the Mission now - "These Are Our Days!" These Are Our Days Elders and Sisters! And we have all the skill to be artisans and "molten", as did the Brother of Jared, Progressing and Potential Investigators so that the "Finger of the Lord" can touch them that they might be illuminated! I know this will happen with our collective faith and diligence on a foundation of exact obedience and sacrifice to find, teach repentance and baptize the best of converts! THESE ARE OUR DAYS!
With much love, esteem, and respect!
President Clark
PS. Remember to develop your Power Statements and
Relevant Cues to bless you with your Mission Vision Statement. Below is the
excerpt from this talk which will help you.
The Power of Your Words (Excerpt) - by Craig L. Manning:
BYU Speeches, January, 2017
FAITH BEGINS WITH HOW YOU TALK TO YOURSELF
What is potentially the greatest lesson the Lord has taught me is that faith begins with how you talk to yourself.
From the Lectures on Faith we read:
It is by words . . . with which every being works when he works by faith. God said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” Joshua spake, and the great lights which God had created stood still. Elijah commanded, and the heavens were stayed for the space of three years and six months, so that it did not rain. . . . All this was done by faith. . . . Faith, then, works by words; and with these [words] its mightiest works have been, and will be, performed. [61 (7.3)]
As I continued my education, my passion for wanting to understand the application of true principles and facts continued to grow. I was fortunate that BYU hired me as the women’s head tennis coach, and I worked hard to apply what I was being taught. As the time arrived to do my dissertation, I wanted to study how attentional control, or focus, impacted human performance. While working on my dissertation, I would awake early in the morning and pray for guidance from the Lord. It was a draining experience; having a full-time job, four kids, and a dissertation to write did not come easy for me. I will forever be indebted to my wife’s sacrifices during this period of time.
Out of this experience the Lord taught me how to take principles, facts, or ideas and break them down into actionable knowledge. This process is called MIND MAPPING or coding the mind, turning knowledge into an action or a skill, and it applies not only to physical skills but to mental skills. MIND MAPPING is accomplished through the creation of RELEVANT CUES. A RELEVANT CUE is two to three actionable words that act as triggers and that are exact enough to HOLD AN INDIVIDUAL'S ATTENTION UNDER EXTREME PRESSURE OR EXTREME BOREDOM. These CUES enable an individual to direct his or her attention to very specific actions, rapidly creating relevant skills.
I applied this process to my coaching and was amazed by the dramatic increase in performance from the tennis players I was working with. Prior to using relevant cues, I would work hard during a one-hour tennis lesson to have the athlete hitting the ball well by the end of the hour, only to have the athlete return for the next lesson and have to spend the first twenty to thirty minutes going back over what we had last worked on. Retention was not where it needed to be.
When we used relevant cues, the athlete’s retention increased to the point that it would take a maximum of only five minutes to review the skills the athlete had learned in the previous lesson, as the skills had been retained. This increased retention allowed for rapid progression to the next skill. I started applying this process to other sports and then to business, then to music, and now to addiction recovery.
One athlete I worked with using this method was a U.S. Olympic mogul skier who, seven months prior to the Vancouver Olympics, was on the C team and was not ranked very high. Her coach approached me and asked me to work with her with the hope that she might be ready to compete at the Sochi Olympics four and a half years down the road. I remember the conversation. The coach wanted to test the effectiveness of mental strength training. He said to me that this particular athlete would do what I asked and that she was my guinea pig.
The athlete worked hard on training her thoughts to be positive and proactive and on using relevant cues to purify her thought patterns. She did everything I asked. On November 19 she called me in tears. She had just made the last discretionary position on the World Cup tour. This was a subjective coaches’ decision to bring someone onto the World Cup team who had minimal professional experience.
As the season progressed through the early winter months, this athlete continued to develop her skills rapidly to the point that, by the time the World Cup at Deer Valley came around at the end of January, she was sitting in tenth place on the tour. She had achieved several fourth-place finishes to get to tenth in the world, but she had never finished on the podium.
One of the tools I like the athletes I work with to have is a POWER STATEMENT. A POWER STATEMENT is a tool (CAN BE A RELEVANT CUE) to use when doubt comes at critical moments. It floods the mind with positive, strong thoughts and instantly squeezes out any negative thoughts and emotions.
The Power of Your Words (Excerpt) - by Craig L. Manning:
BYU Speeches, January, 2017
FAITH BEGINS WITH HOW YOU TALK TO YOURSELF
What is potentially the greatest lesson the Lord has taught me is that faith begins with how you talk to yourself.
From the Lectures on Faith we read:
It is by words . . . with which every being works when he works by faith. God said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” Joshua spake, and the great lights which God had created stood still. Elijah commanded, and the heavens were stayed for the space of three years and six months, so that it did not rain. . . . All this was done by faith. . . . Faith, then, works by words; and with these [words] its mightiest works have been, and will be, performed. [61 (7.3)]
As I continued my education, my passion for wanting to understand the application of true principles and facts continued to grow. I was fortunate that BYU hired me as the women’s head tennis coach, and I worked hard to apply what I was being taught. As the time arrived to do my dissertation, I wanted to study how attentional control, or focus, impacted human performance. While working on my dissertation, I would awake early in the morning and pray for guidance from the Lord. It was a draining experience; having a full-time job, four kids, and a dissertation to write did not come easy for me. I will forever be indebted to my wife’s sacrifices during this period of time.
Out of this experience the Lord taught me how to take principles, facts, or ideas and break them down into actionable knowledge. This process is called MIND MAPPING or coding the mind, turning knowledge into an action or a skill, and it applies not only to physical skills but to mental skills. MIND MAPPING is accomplished through the creation of RELEVANT CUES. A RELEVANT CUE is two to three actionable words that act as triggers and that are exact enough to HOLD AN INDIVIDUAL'S ATTENTION UNDER EXTREME PRESSURE OR EXTREME BOREDOM. These CUES enable an individual to direct his or her attention to very specific actions, rapidly creating relevant skills.
I applied this process to my coaching and was amazed by the dramatic increase in performance from the tennis players I was working with. Prior to using relevant cues, I would work hard during a one-hour tennis lesson to have the athlete hitting the ball well by the end of the hour, only to have the athlete return for the next lesson and have to spend the first twenty to thirty minutes going back over what we had last worked on. Retention was not where it needed to be.
When we used relevant cues, the athlete’s retention increased to the point that it would take a maximum of only five minutes to review the skills the athlete had learned in the previous lesson, as the skills had been retained. This increased retention allowed for rapid progression to the next skill. I started applying this process to other sports and then to business, then to music, and now to addiction recovery.
One athlete I worked with using this method was a U.S. Olympic mogul skier who, seven months prior to the Vancouver Olympics, was on the C team and was not ranked very high. Her coach approached me and asked me to work with her with the hope that she might be ready to compete at the Sochi Olympics four and a half years down the road. I remember the conversation. The coach wanted to test the effectiveness of mental strength training. He said to me that this particular athlete would do what I asked and that she was my guinea pig.
The athlete worked hard on training her thoughts to be positive and proactive and on using relevant cues to purify her thought patterns. She did everything I asked. On November 19 she called me in tears. She had just made the last discretionary position on the World Cup tour. This was a subjective coaches’ decision to bring someone onto the World Cup team who had minimal professional experience.
As the season progressed through the early winter months, this athlete continued to develop her skills rapidly to the point that, by the time the World Cup at Deer Valley came around at the end of January, she was sitting in tenth place on the tour. She had achieved several fourth-place finishes to get to tenth in the world, but she had never finished on the podium.
One of the tools I like the athletes I work with to have is a POWER STATEMENT. A POWER STATEMENT is a tool (CAN BE A RELEVANT CUE) to use when doubt comes at critical moments. It floods the mind with positive, strong thoughts and instantly squeezes out any negative thoughts and emotions.
· Version:
7.5.0.1
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