Feliz Cinco
de Mayo, everyone! We’re having a
district Cinco de Mayo fiesta today. My district has been pretty
sweet this transfer. There’s just 6 of
us, so we’re super tight. Elder Barlow
and Elder Moreno are in my old area in Santa Barbara, so it’s nice to know all
the people they talk about and I can help them.
Elder Moreno is a convert of a year when he came out, and is
super solid. He knows a ton for only being out a year. The hermanas are the sister training leaders,
so they are never even in their area, because they do exchanges all over the
mission, but still somehow they manage to have a ton of progressing
investigators and a lot of people at church every week. I’m not sure how that works. Maybe someday I’ll be as good as a sister
missionary....
We have been doing a lot of service with Y--. Behind
our church, there is a community garden, so we’re helping her plant a garden
back there. We started with just a field
of 6 ft high weeds. And remember she’s from Laos with no motors or
anything... so we take out all the weeds with shovels and continue to till the
entire field one turn of a shovel at a time.... and then she followed us and
picked out every single tiny blade of grass and weed in the whole thing by
hand... She’s the real deal. All the members love her.
I’ve been studying in the topical guide under Jesus Christ
once a week. There are 54 topics under Jesus Christ, so by doing it once a week
in about a year I should have a pretty extensive study of the Savior. It’s my favorite day of the week for studies
for sure. I’ve been in the church and
have known and learned about Jesus Christ my entire life, but it amazes me how
much I still have to learn/am learning everyday about my Savior and Heavenly Father.
I think of the prodigal son's return. What was going through his mind right before
he goes back home. Undoubtedly, he probably had a little script of some sort,
planning out what he was going to say to his father, how he would try to
explain himself... I know I’ve made hundreds of those explanations in my mind
of what to say to Dad or teachers when I was in trouble....hundreds, probably
thousands :) Sometimes, I’d plan to say the things I thought would get me
in the least amount of trouble... you know, bend it in a way that would sound
best to his ears. Most of the time, it worked on teachers and the principal,
and most of the time it did not work with Dad... but that’s beside the point. When the prodigal son returns, he doesn’t
even have a chance to speak. His father just embraces him and holds him. It
doesn’t matter what the son did or why he did it. The father is just so happy
he is home safe, he doesn’t care about anything else.
And then I think of the parable of the lost sheep.
The Lord is not concerned with how the sheep got lost or why they left
the flock in the first place. The scriptures don’t allude to the reasons why,
simply because these details are not important.
All the savior cares about is getting the lost sheep back.
I like to think that is how our Father in Heaven feels when we choose to
repent. If He truly has perfect love like we say He does, then as long as we
are truly honest and deeply sincere, then He will forgive us, embrace us, and
just hold us. There is no need for
prepared scripts, no need for excuses, just a broken heart and a contrite
spirit. :)
