Valentine's Day Special

"Ting! Ting! Ting!" I knock on the black metal gate of a whitish, well-kepts house. I take two at what I first think to be quite the ugly woman specimen. The face and figure just don't go with the femininely fitted, curvy-cut clothing. All makes sense as I learn the name: J*. He's a cross-dresser, and obviously on a date. My companion hasn't picked up on the "timely interruption" and thus asks, "are you enjoying your Valentines day?" After we all recovered from the awkward moment, we left him with a copy of "The Family, a proclamation to the world".

Had an interview with the Mission President. It was really special. I set a new goal to learn about and apply the principle of the sacrament more in my life. Honestly, it's kinda hard here. Every week we have to count attendance, we have to make sure our investigators come to church, etc. It's so stressful that many times that I totally forget about the sacrament. they do their routes and everything, I grab the bread, the water, eat it, drink it, and that's kinda it. I was invited to partake of it more seriously.

If we compare baptism to a contract between us and God, then we could compare the sacrament to the monthly payments. We review our status in the contract and offwer what we've prepared/saved up over the month to continue in the contract and toward our end having a home. It's the same thing with baptism. We can give ourselves the baptismal or temple reccommend interview every week to review our commitment and performance over the week. We can also review the blessings of said covenants in our lives, review its worth to us. In this way, I realized that in this way, the sabbath day becomes a PERPETUAL COVENANT (Russel M Nelson, may 2015), and we can thus participate in a PERPETUAL JUDGEMENT DAY.

Also, in D&C 59, found 10 commandments of this dispensation. :) that was pretty fun. Really enjoyed commandment number 7: Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things. Pretty great, isn't it? Enjoyed that one. been practicing gratitude. it's actually pretty hard. In my study, I feel like I've found a good definition of gratitude, being more than just a list of things we're grateful for. gratitude: a heartfelt respect for what we have and are, recognizing its place as a representation of love and mercy from an all-powerful being, realizing how little we truly deserve it. I also feel like in order to truly enjoy what we have, we have to realize how little we deserve it.

fun little thoughts to chew on over the week.

Love you all! the work keeps progressing. I'm truly grateful for the mission, for my family, for what I've learned, for what I've been given and what's been witheld from me for a time. I know this work is the work of the Lord. I know God loves us. I know we can do this, notwithstanding its apparent difficulty.