“One of the ironies which is fostered, at times innocently, in the Church, is the feeling we have that the spirit of the law is superior to the letter of the law because for some reason it seems more permissive or less apt to offend others. The reverse is true. The spirit of the law is superior because it demands more of us than the letter of the law. The spirit of the law insists that we do more than merely comply superficially. It means, too, that we must give attention to the things that matter most and still not leave the others undone.”
This was a quote that My president sent us this week. We had zone conference and talked about the spirit of the law verses the letter of the law. I loved it! All of us really needed to have that conversation. Some take things WAY too seriously and others don't take things serious enough. Its all about finding the happy balance and being able to follow the rules and do something different if/when the spirit directs.
Anyway this week was pretty good. Not much happened.
Wendy is doing so well! She loves learning about the gospel. We taught her the Plan of Salvation this week and when we were finished she said she was so energized and could find nothing wrong with it. At first she scared me because when we taught the spirit world and the fact that everyone gets second chances she seemed mad that the murders and "bad" people would get a second chance. I hoped that wasn't going to be an issue for her but after we explained the atonement more thoroughly the spirit testified to her that it would all work out. The spirit was so powerful as we taught about how the atonement covered all of us and that none were too far below its reaches. It testified to me how loving the Savior is and how merciful He and Heavenly Father are. To let even those that we feel have done too much to hurt others can still be forgiven and can be changed from the atonement. It was a neat experience for me. Wendy is so great and is making progress toward baptism which is really exciting!
Here is the sad news for thanksgiving. One of the investigators we are teaching doesn't have a place for Thanksgiving. Sad right? Well it gets worse. Not a single member wants to have her come to their home. I can 100% guarantee that not everyone is going to be out of town. Why the people don't want to be Christlike is beyond me. Anyway I was thinking about that last night and thinking about how sad it is knowing that someone is going to be alone because other people are too selfish. Then the thought dawned on me "If you are so Christ-like why don't you feed her?" I kind of laughed at the thought and then seriously said "Yeah why not?" so the plan right now is to see if we can get permission to take her out with us on Thanksgiving night. We have dinner at 3, we could easily go get something at denny's or ihop and share a meal together. Obviously it wouldn't be your typical thanksgiving meal but hey ITS NOT ABOUT THE FOOD! Its all about being together with family and being grateful for what I have. And what do you do when you are truly grateful for something? You share it! So Sister Barnes and I are trying to get permission right now. Hopefully things work out. I think that would be really great for this investigator. Mom I hope you aren't crying right now! Haha
Ok I don't have much time but I wanted to share part of a talk from conference that I absolutely LOVED!
This is from the talk by Elder Klebingat. Its all about gaining spiritual confidence and how we can do that. That part that I loved the most was when he speaks about learning to "Embrace voluntary, whole hearted obedience as part of your life." I think I said this last week but I all of the sudden love the idea of exact obedience when you are home from a mission. Here there are several reasons why we are exactly obedient and we mostly think of the mission rules when we think about exact obedience. But here is the deal, we need to be exactly obedient when we are home too! We still have commandments that we need to keep and people to love! So here are a few of the quotes that really touched me.
"Selective obedience bring selective blessings. Choosing something bad over something worse is still choosing wrong. Faithful observance of some commandments doesn't justify neglecting others. The Lord knows why you go to church-whether you are present in body only or truly worshipping. You can't sing on Sunday "O Babylon, O Babylon, I bid thee farewell and then seek or tolerate its company again a moment later. I love that last sentence. I think it might just be because that is my favorite hymn right now (Elder of Isreal #319). Really though! We can't be saying one thing on Sunday and do something totally different during the rest of the week! Do we wanted to be taken care of or not? When we are exactly obedient we are giving the Lord the ability to guide us to the places we need to be. We are showing him that we want and need his help every day.
He can't change our hearts if he does not have our hearts. That is against our gift of agency. It doesn't work that way.
Unfortunately my time is up but remember who you all are! Keep doing the things that strengthen you and most importantly...remember WHO you are and WHOSE you are! You all should go and read the rest of the talk! He goes on to talk about how Satan tries to tell us that Heavenly Father doesn't love us because we make mistakes. He says "Ignore that!" I don't know if that is a direct quote but you get what I mean. No one is too far gone. All it takes is a willing heart. I love you all!
Sister Skeeter
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