Well what a week it was. And today
I complete 20! yes 20 Months as a missionary!! i must be crazy or something
because i remember being in my companions place and thinking “what in the world
am i going to do with 23 months!?!” and i would just say lets go for the long
run but wait! i want it to slow down a bit!! but I sure am grateful to be a
missionary!!
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| First root beer! |
oh that reminds me of a talk by
Pres. Uchtdorf this past conference entitled Grateful in any circumstances What a great talk!!! the funny thing
is i have been studying about it for 2 weeks and its helped!!! wow how great it
is to be grateful! I really have learned in my mission a lot about being
grateful!!! it might be because the people sacrifice to give things to us like
food and well whatever it is we better be grateful for it and well we better at
least try it! the truth is I'm so grateful to be a missionary. As Disciples of
Christ, we are commanded to “thank the
Lord [our] God in all things,” to “sing
unto the Lord with thanksgiving,” and to “let [our] heart be full of thanks unto God.” it’s the truth I feel
better when I thank than when i ask god. because its important to ask but what
great blessings we have. Perhaps focusing
on what we are grateful for is the wrong approach. It is difficult to develop a
spirit of gratitude if our thankfulness is only proportional to the number of
blessings we can count. True, it is important to frequently “count our
blessings”—and anyone who has tried this knows there are many—but I don’t
believe the Lord expects us to be less thankful in times of trial than in times
of abundance and ease. In fact, most of the scriptural references do not speak
of gratitude for things but rather suggest an overall spirit or attitude of
gratitude. the thing is we are happier when we give thanks. think of it
this way have you ever seen someone really be grateful for something with a
frown on there face? i haven't but it might happen but when usually are happy
and we are showing our thanks to the person. now let me tell you a story.
When I was in Tuxtla we visited a
great young man named Freddy. i still miss him! one day elder Zambrano and I
where teaching him about the importance of being grateful. we asked him
"Freddy what are you grateful for?" and Boom a list of things then
Elder Zambrano asked a question that really brought the spirit in strong. he
asked "now Freddy what are you grateful for with god? , and how do you
show it?" wow great question I thought but the answer was better, he said "
I am grateful for my life and i show it in the way i act, he loves me and I
know that but if i don't show that I love him how will I feel his love? thats
the way i show i care." another person who i know is so grateful to his
father in heaven is Emmanuel he says he loves god so much he will pay 3 pesos for
his tithing because he is just grateful to receive money. A Christ centered life is a grateful one. My dear brothers and sisters,
the choice is ours. We can choose to limit our gratitude, based on the
blessings we feel we lack. Or we can choose to be like Nephi, whose grateful
heart never faltered. When his brothers tied him up on the ship—which he had
built to take them to the promised land—his ankles and wrists were so sore
“they had swollen exceedingly,” and a violent storm threatened to swallow him up
in the depths of the sea. “Nevertheless,” Nephi said, “I did look unto my God,
and I did praise him all the day long; and I did not murmur against the Lord
because of mine afflictions." just as it says in 1 Corinthians
15:57-58 "But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our
Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your
labour is not in vain in the Lord." When we are grateful to God in our
circumstances, we can experience gentle peace in the midst of tribulation. In
grief, we can still lift up our hearts in praise. In pain, we can glory in
Christ’s Atonement. In the cold of bitter sorrow, we can experience the
closeness and warmth of heaven’s embrace. This is not a gratitude of the lips
but of the soul. It is a gratitude that heals the heart and expands the mind.
We can choose to be grateful, no matter what. what a great blessing it is to be
grateful and to do the will of the lord! yesterday sister Oliphant, one of the
sister missionaries in our ward and well my “neighbor" because she is from
South Jordan, she sang yesterday in church and she sang i know that my redeemer
lives in English and Spanish. It made me think how grateful i am to know that
he lives, thank you sister Oliphant you helped us remember something we should
always be grateful for, that our lord and savior Jesus Christ lives. I am so
glad to have his name over my heart everyday and well what an honor it is to be
worth of bearing his name! may we live in Thanksgiving daily! the church is
true!!! may god bless you wherever you are and whatever you do. I'm so glad to
be a missionary!!
love you all!! have a great week!!
Elder Jaymes Monson
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