April 17, 2012

I don't know if I told you guys or not, but I had the sweet opportunity to meet Elder Russle M. Nielson last saturday. He was down here for some bishops meeting, and he decided to meet with all of the california carlsbad mission as well. He is super cool! But most importantly, I know that he is not just a normal man. While he was talking with us, the thoughts just came coming to my head that there is no way that he is a real person! No one can be that good, that in tune with the spirit, and then that old and remember the things that he did. When he got up to talk, I don't think that he even prepared anything, but he gave the most profound talk that was directed right toward me. And, i'm assuming, to every missionary in the building.

 

He talked about a lot of things. One of the biggest was about the atonement/repentance. Repentance by definition in some other language means to change the way you act, feel, thoughts, and even as small as the way you breath. It's like that mighty change of heart that it talks about all through the scriptures. And then he said something that really struck me, and has continued to strike me to this day for how many times that it has been brought up. We are doing great, we are doing what we are supposed to do, but we have to Change. We have to listen to what was taught, and we must act upon those words. We cannot continue in the same direction that we came to the meeting in, otherwise how good are we? We have to be higher than we were just a few minutes ago.

 

That was repeated very, very strongly to me at district meeting last Wednesday in a way that I cannot doubt that god wants me to change. Then even today, we went to the sandiego temple. I realized some of the promises that I have covenanted to do. One of them being following All of his commandments. If we look at it this way, every single prompting from the holy ghost is a commandment. If I don't do that, I am basically braking my promise that I made with god. That really blew me away today, it was quite overwhelming. I felt that that task is almost imposable. But as always, god let me know that all these things that he asks us to do are for our benefit, and will bring us the Most joy if we follow everything that he asks. He also will never leave us alone. We have someone that has been through all of our experiences before. We have so many tools and ways to accomplish all that he commands, we just have to do as king Benjamin said and act upon our faith.