Our Bishop's Challenge

Near the end of July the leaders of my congregation (the Bishopric of my Ward) kept telling us that the Bishop (the foremost leader of our local unit) was going to issue a challenge to our congregation for the month of August. When the first Sunday of August came, a member of our congregation was leaving for two years to offer missionary service. There was double the attendance during our worship services—I know because I saw the official count. Despite the extra, irregular attendance, Bishop Ryan Roberts was determined to issue his challenge. Here is what he asked of us.

The Bishop's Challenge:

• Read from The Book of Mormon every day.
• Go to the temple often in August (every week if feasible).
• Do a Christian act of service for someone.
• Be to sacrament meeting at least seven minutes early every Sunday.
• Choose something from your life that detracts from the Spirit and remove it from your life.

My wife, my daughter, and I at Church

There were a couple of other challenges specifically offered to the children and teenagers.

At first, I thought, "Wow! This is a long laundry list of items." Then I realized these are things I should be doing anyway. Melissa and I determined to follow our Bishop's counsel. I have not set up this blog to boast (or to reveal all my weaknesses 　) and that is not the intent of this post, so I will not tell you what we succeeded in and what we could have done better at, but I will tell you we were very blessed for trying the best we could to follow our local leaders. When I say very blessed, I mean very targeted powerful outcomes resulted.

This is me reading from The Book of Mormon

Bishop Roberts is a fantastic man and I believe he was inspired to issue this challenge to us. He told us that he hoped this challenge would help to prepare us for the upcoming Church events (Stake Conference and General Conference). I hope and pray that I will do better at listening to my local leaders. I want to be prepared for the inspiration that will be poured out in October from our world-wide Church leaders. I know I will be more in tune with God if I listen to the counsel from my local leaders.

Have you had an experience where you have been blessed from listening to a local leader? How are you preparing for General Conference? I would love your thoughts below.

I love this song. It's called Sound of a Living Heart