Week 78 - I spoke too soon

Love my district

Died this week (classic)

Taught Yoann and Yolan golden. They're 11 and 12and their moms inactive she was like yeah let's get them baptised come teach them. Love teaching kids so much

Saw some graffiti while driving that said: Dont live so your presense is noticed, live so your absence is felt

"When we reject the counsel which comes from God, we do not choose to be independent of outside influence. We choose another influence" Sometimes when we choose to walk away from God we feel like we're living our own life doing our own thing. NOT TRUE,

"We have moral agency as a gift of God. Rather than the right to choose to be free of influence, it is the inalienable right to submit ourselves to whichever of those powers we choose." Truth isn't relative, cry about it

"Boist'rous waves obey thy will when thou saist to them be still" so why can't we? 

LOVE IS THE MOTIVE NOT THE MEDIUM

(aka it doesn't matter what it is, but why it is) 

Went to an art museum thing today, cool

Week 77 - Easy & Light

I feel extremely grateful to be here right now, I'm grateful for the experience God is letting me have. I feel like these past 2 transfers, God has just been so kind to me and I've just been surrounded by the most incredible people and so because of that I just feel much joy and peace. I'm so so so so thankful for the missionaries and the members and the friends

The schedule is just so filled up with so many meaningful things and I'm so glad that most of my mission I WASNT as busy as I am now, because I can look at all the crazy miracles happening with people progressing and say: wow I'm so glad that God is being so kind to me and letting me live this right now. Sometimes I feel like I'm just floating on a cloud to the end

Saturday night at 9PM I'm cutting an apple. Then I'm like WAIT. Aduché needs a ride to church. DIDN'T MATHIEU SAY HE LIVES IN ST FRANÇOIS ?! So we texted him and he was SO down to pick him up?? Neither of them are members, SO COOL. But then there was a medical emergency with Mathieus dad so he couldn't. RIIIIIP

A sailing family from Oregon showed up on Sunday (they're members) and what the mom said to me was direct answers to prayers. 

I took notes, lemme share:

"What if there aren't boxes to check off what it it's just a really great experience?" 

I also got smacked in the face with revelation as she was expressing how there is NEVER a time to put your passions away.

"When I give Him everything, I think I need to give him my full mesure of joy" she explained how sometimes there's push back from the culture when we want to do unconventional things. But when God asks us to give Him everything, He means our fulness of joy. Give Him our interests, our passions, our talents. He doesn't ask us to put them away or stomp out our dreams so we can fit into a cookie cutter lifestyle!! The gospel was given to support children of God, not the other way around. The church is NOT a limiting thing, don't let certain culture fool you

My fulness of joy looks different than the next person's. Maybe theirs is getting married at 18 and living the most simple life possible. That's good if that's what supports them in their journey to becoming the most them they could possibly be. But for someone else, maybe it looks different. Because their personality is different so their fulness of joy looks different. That's something else she said: "Heavenly Father uses all of our personalities". If I'm a stayer, He would want me to stay. If I'm a goer, He would want me to go. Covenants simply bind us to the person who will help us become the most us we can be, they don't try to change who we are or limit us. God is happy when you do the uncomfortable thing that allows you to dig into your passion. HE LOVES THAT. Don't "bury the talents"! 

"Then, at length, when I’ve completed

All you sent me forth to do,

With your mutual approbation

Let me come and dwell with you."-O My Father

I really do feel like I have been filled with His love, even unto the consuming of my flesh. Very grateful. 

Week 76 - To the Unknown God

One day this week I was yet again smacked in the face with how privileged I am. I go into a lesson. The house is quiet. "oh yeah, everyone else left. To the U. S. " WHAT?! JUST LIKE THAT?! Broke my heart, I didn't even get to say goodbye! And for her daughter she'll never see her "sisters" again! Then the next lesson. BOOM she's like "yeah I'm going to France. Moving there in July" WHAT!!!! Then the next lesson. BOOM "Yeah my son and his dad in the other country are moving to the US and my other sons coming here" WHAT?!? WHY ARE WE 3 FOR 3 HERE?! 

Let me explain. 3 single mothers, all in Guadeloupe, all hoping one day to LEAVE Guadeloupe to have a better life. STUCK. Having to squeeze through the not-so-fair really tight bars of the law. Idk I just felt really privileged to know that I'm not at the mercy of a government for the "outcome" of my life, and I DO know when I'm leaving Gwada. it's very important to be understanding and not ignorant of others, especially immigrants. Seeing it here is just astonishing, these people are just Agxjjshqjsg the only thing that keeps coming to mind is "immigrants - we get the job done" no but for real it's so important to be understanding. Nephi was an immigrant

Thiinking Celestial is knowinf that God is always with you (He's with us in the Celestial kigndom) 

"with healing in His wings" AS you ascend, you are healed. Healing doesn't come only AFTER you are ascended.

Had multiple people ask how to be a "Good Christian". There's no such thing as a "Good Christian" because there's so such thing as a "bad Christian", as long as you're trying you're doing it "perfectly", thats all that's asked

"To the Unknown God" 

I want you to read this, it's from the institute manual:

"Paul complimented the Athenians, acknowledging that they were “too superstitious,” meaning they were “most religious; i.e., careful in divine things” The altar built by the Athenians to the “unknown god” is referred to in other historical sources as an altar to the unknowable god or to all gods not specifically known by name. The Athenians had apparently built this altar to avoid offending or neglecting some unknown deity. Paul referred to this altar as he began teaching that God can indeed be known by His children."

Here's a little of what Paul said to teach that God can be known:

"That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring." Acts 17:27-28 

Feel after Him, He's not far, He's right in front of you

I like to think of feeling after Him as prayer and scripture study being the result of a feeling, not the other way around. Like when I was little and my mom read me a bedtime story and said goodnight to me each night; Heavenly Father wants the same thing. He's knocking on our bedroom door each night. Gotta get in that daily bedtime story and conversation with him, there's a lotta love that comes with it. All you gotta do is open the door, that's all. 

Don't fear an "unknown God" as if you're not doing enough or forgetting some important commandment or missing something, "be still and know that I am God" is a scripture for a reason. If you REALLY wanted to show the Lord you trust Him, you'd stop thinking about your mistakes, having the faith that Jesus is the one cleaning up after you, not yourself. Hard right? Almost like it'll require some faith...

Psalm 48:14 "For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death."