WEEK 4

 WEEK 4:

On Wednesday we went to the temple and did an endowment session! It was amazing to hear everything in Spanish. It is crazy that I can be in a foreign country being surrounded with people that speak a different language and I still feel at home. And everyone feels like family. That's why the knowledge of this gospel is so special. We know we are all children of God, here on this earth to come closer to Jesus Christ and make covenants with god and help all our siblings return to our father. 
On Thursday we started "solo español" which is basically where we can only speak in Spanish in our classes. It makes class a little bit more difficult but it is still super fun. 

The only eventful thing that happened on Friday was that elder Gunnell ate a grasshopper for 10 pesos. 

And on Saturday Hermana white, me, and elder bates had a nice chat about music which made me miss it, pero está bien. I wrote my talk for Sunday because they randomly call on people for sacrament talk and I was actually surprised on how much I could write in Spanish so yay!

I know this next section looks really long, but it is worth reading. I promise! 

Sunday's devotional was really special. It was given by Elder Bednar and I want to share some things he said that changed the way I view this life and the purpose of this life. First it is becoming like our Savior by turning outward. Loving people, serving people, and helping people become converted to God. First by having a testimony of Jesus Christ, but more importantly being continuously consistent to what you know (being converted). Life is not about us, who cares about the times you've been offended or the pain you feel, it is not about you. The natural man always turns inward, have you ever seen Christ turn inward? No. Never. Not even when he is bleeding from every pore or hanging on the cross. He turned out in love and compassion and said "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." The natural man will always be an enemy to God unless we do what it says in Mosiah 3:19 and yield to the enticing's of the Holy Spirit and putteth off the natural man through the atonement of Christ. We become converted through turning outward as Jesus did. David A Bednar promised us that if we are completely converted (which means turning outward and being consistent to our testimony) we will NEVER fall away. Ever. One of my religion professors at BYU told me that the natural man is the same as a unrepentant man. And Elder Bednar said that to avoid the natural man we need to turn to Christ. The way to more completely turn to Christ is by repenting. It was cool how all that came together in my head during the devotional. Elder Bednar gave the example of if an apostle hypothetically fell away from the church, it would be sad, but it should have no impact on our witness of Christ because we are converted to the Lord, Jesus Christ. He said that our missions (or later our lives) is not about what we want. Who cares about what you want. Your wants or inward desires/thoughts are the natural man. It is all about Him and serving Him. He said that just our testimony will never be enough, we need to be converted. Another example he gave was where youth will often times share their family story about trekking across the plains and he said "that's great, but what have you done recently." In Alma 23:6 it talks about people being brought to the truth through the teachings of Ammon and his brethren ( or in other words the people gaining a testimony) and it later says through that preaching and being completely converted to the Lord, they never fell away. Elder Bednar said the greatest convert on your mission is you, but that won't happen if you are trying to focus on yourself. 

This devotional changed my life. The spirit I felt confirming the truth that this is the purpose of life was incredible. Every problem, commandment, principle, covenant, ordinance, literally anything in the gospel or in life is answered by this. Turning outward, turning to Christ, repenting, loving, teaching, testifying, literally everything, the the question is... 

What can I do today? What can you do today? God will tell us what we can do, we just need to be ready to receive it and act on it with 100% faith in Jesus Christ. General conference Talk of the week: Salvation and exaltation by president Nelson 2008 April







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