September 1, 2014

Thanks everyone for your emails and updates on life. It’s great for me to see and find out how you guys are doing. And a lot of you all send me awesome quotes, inspirational thoughts or insights which were awesome I’d like to re-share them…because it’s my blog and I do what I want (just kidding)

“You only make a mistake once, the second time is a decision”

“What you get by achieving your goals is not nearly as important as what you become by achieving your goals”

“Holding on to a grudge or hatred for another is like taking poison and expecting the other person to get sick.”

“If you do not forgive someone it is like you are saying the savior’s atonement was not good enough for that person”

And one quote that I found this week that I enjoyed,

“The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You can laugh or you can cry. I prefer to laugh, crying gives me a head ache” -Marjorie Pay Hinckley

My new companion is elder Judkins. He is a rugby playing, professional ball room dancing elder from Oregon. And we are having a blast here together. He is a great missionary with about 9 months in the mission. It’s great to be with someone with the same desires and work ethic as me so we are just going to baptize this whole town. The other 2 new elders here in Yungay are elder Watson (he was in my district in the ccm!) and Elder Morel (he is from Paraguay and has ab out 5 months on the mission)

This week we just started to work and haven’t stopped. And this week we found 17 new investigators. I have never found so many people in one week in my mission thus far! Personal record!

I know that it is a blessing from obedience.

Obedience is the biggest test we have here on this earth. Our ability to be obedient and humble ourselves to accept and rely on the will of God is key to our happiness. It determines our attitude, our choices, and our decisions and creates our consequences.

It is true what mom always used to say…”I love you too much to argue with you”….OH WAIT wrong quote from mom... haha

This one… “You can choose your actions but you can’t choose your consequences”

Through our actions we create our future whether they be good or bad.

But thanks to our loving heavenly father we have so much help, we have a guide to a better life. The way has been paved by Jesus Christ and all we need to do is follow him and his commandments.

I have learned that commandments are not hard, but the world and its temptations and distractions that tend complicate things.

When Lehi was caught up in his vision of the tree of life he explained that we was in a large and spacious field. And the First thing that he saw, the biggest, the brightest, the whitest and the most warm and comforting object that caught his attention was the tree of life and its fruit.(1 nephi 8 9-10)

Our goal is that clear as well, we know what we want and that is to life with God again, we want to partake of his glory and love. And like I said before the road has already been paved for us…Lehi saw “a straight and narrow way,” (1nefi 8:21-23) the way that Christ has prepared for us, “a more excellent way” (ether 12: 11, 32 and 1cor 12: 31)

The way is straight, we see our goal, but what makes it so hard to get there?

“…and it came to past that their came a mist of darkness, even an exceeding great mist. Inasmuch that they who commenced their path did lose their way. And I cast my eyes about and beheld... a great and spacious building...and it was filled with people...and were in an attitude of mocking those in the way to partake of the fruit” (1nephi 8:23-33)

The mist, the darkness and the great and spacious building, or in other words, the wisdom of the world, the pride in our hearts, the natural man, or the temptations of the devil blind us and we lose our way…Gods way is easy, his burden is light, with him we can find rest (matt 11:29) but when we mix with the way of the world we are lost to forbidden paths and are alone.

That is why we have the iron rod to cling on to. This being a symbol of the word of God.

My definition of cling: to desperately grab on to, to hold fast, and to have a POWER GRIP

So my message to you today is have a POWER GRIP on the word of God, it will help us find our path, see it clearly and get us to where we want to go.

(And if you want to study a little more I have found out that Alma 32 and 1nehi 8, 11 and like he same message but using a different symbol. The iron rod is the word of God and the seed that is planted in our hearts the same…”BRAIN BLAST”-jimmy neutron)

I love you all and hope that you have a great week.