This week was super fun! Alright, it all
started out last Monday. Our district took time out of pday so we could
go to a Haunted House Monday
night. It wasn't a very scary one but it was a lot of fun to go out and
do something like that as a district! And it was funny seeing some of
the other Elders freak out haha!
This week we
also did a lot of service for a family that is in our branch now that
was homeless for a while. The father had been active until he turned 17
and his girlfriend isn't a member but they have been coming to church
and the ward has been helping them out soo much! We got the chance to
help move donated furniture into their house a couple times. They are
really nice and very appreciative of what the members have done. We are
going to start meeting with, and teaching them this week now that they
are all set up and into their new home.
Alright so the best thing this week was definitely our mission conference on Saturday.
We got to go to Baton Rouge as a whole mission and meet Elder Dallin H.
Oaks! We started with a mission picture with him and then we all got to
shake his hand! That in it self was cool! It was crazy to have an
Apostle in the same building as all of us! And the conference was
nothing like what I expected. Most Zone Conferences are wayyyy too long
and boring for me. Elder Oaks didn't have much time so it was only a two
hour Conference but it was also super funny! Elder Oaks has a great
sense of humor and likes having people laugh! He opened it up to
question and answer with us and it was really cool. One of my favorite
things he said was about humility. I won't get the quotes exactly right
but I will get the gist of them. One Elder asked "So if we are to be
humble, and being humble requires self-abasement, how do we be humble
and not ruin our self-esteem?" Elder Oaks response was amazing. He said
in effect "I do not think of humility as self-abasement. Being humble is
being open and being able to be taught." I thought that was a good
answer cause when we hear that we need to be humble we always seem to
think that that means we need to make ourselves less, but in reality
humility helps us make ourselves more than we ever could have been.
To
end my letter I just want to state something that I have been thinking
about a lot this weekend. So I have been thinking a lot about what the
gospel is. So one of the things that came to my mind was a quote from
Jack Sparrow in the first Pirates of the Caribbean. About ships he says,
"That's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a keel and a hull and a
deck and sails, that's what a ship needs but what a ship is... what the
Black Pearl really is... is freedom." As members and especially
missionaries, when we are asked what the gospel is we tend to think in a
list, at least I did. It's the Restoration, the Plan of Salvation, the
Commandments. So now I am going to change the original quote. "That's
what the Gospel is, you know. It's not just a Restoration and a Plan and
a Law and Commandments, that's what the Gospel needs but what the
Gospel is... what the True Gospel really is... is Hope." Isn't that
exactly what the gospel truly is to us? Isn't it the hope that comes
because of the Savior? Isn't it the hope that because of him we can
return to our Heavenly Father, and see our loved ones again? Isn't it
the hope the because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ we can have help
through all our struggles?
Well I hope y'all have a great week!
