Christmas is the best.
Elder Baker and I spent an entire exchange making a super sweet "Light the World" photo frame. He put on his Santa suit and we took pictures with a ton of students and tactfully got their numbers before they even suspected we were a cult church. Bwahahahaha!
Analogy about corn that really impressed me: A new Elder in my district named Elder Lawrence has basically Celiacs disease except it's with corn instead of wheat. So he gets really sick for days if he even eats a speck of any corn product (corn syrup, corn starch, most natural flavors, red 40 etc.). In case you were unaware, if you are in America and you see food, it has corn in it. Luckily Korea is not as corn crazy as 'merca but he still has to be careful. Anyway, the other day at a service project we were talking and he compared it to living the gospel. When he went to BYU he got super good at monitoring his food and would not eat anything unless he prepared it himself or he could see the entire ingredient label. After going faithfully for a few months and feeling great he described how it was easy to think: "Maybe corn doesn't really hurt" "Maybe I was just imagining it" "Maybe I cured it" etc. but then once he slipped up it became very clear that corn still hurts.
How often do we do that with the little things in the gospel? After we go a week of having really fervent morning and night prayers and reading the Book of Mormon and trying to follow the Spirit and life is just going great how often do we stop doing the things that led to that!? I do this all the time. I learn a spiritual truth (for instance that my physical attitude and location is really important for my nightly prayers,) I do it for five days, then I guess I convince myself that I've mastered it or something and I STOP!
I'm so silly.
Earth life is about doing the right things consistently. A lifetime of consistently doing the same things seems really boring, but it's small and simple things that bring the reward of joy.
Don't even look at the corn for too long!
From the beginning of our beloved President Madsen's reign, he has told the missionaries at every zone conference to each morning look in the mirror and audibly say "I am a child of God" and each night to say "I did my best". thoughout my mission. I probably did the morning one about thirty times throughout my first year (it usually wasn't very meaningful), and I probably said "I did my best" about five times max. Doing it every day of this week is what has made all the difference because honestly, I rarely did my best for the entire day and I felt awkward saying those words. Now that I know I will have to face myself and say it each night, I'm actually doing my best, and because that's all He asks of us, I am experiencing joy.
I know God lives, I know a relationship with Him brings more happiness that anything the world can offer. I know that Jesus Christ is my savior.
I love you,
Elder Brown
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| This was a service project that would have taken an hour for five people to finish but our whole zone got to go! I'm sure there will be much good that comes from it though. |
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