Sept. 26, 2011

Man that is crazy about michael! I'll definitely pray for him. I haven't been too hot this week either, but nothing like that. I think I have strep throat and so I have not been able to eat sleep or swallow anything for about the past week. But I am getting some antibiotics today and it should all turn out good. But I learned some really important stuff this week in this week of self-pity. Although  I served every day and refused to take a day off. My service was not that of All my heart might mind and strength. During this week we had the blessed opportunity of listening to Elder Robbins a member of the 70, and he was just so powerful. He just talked about how in order to have a 100% agency we must take a 100% of the responsibility.  And then we talked about different ways that people try to avoid taking responsibility, and how all of those are faith killing things. Whether it is blaming others, justifying, making excuses, lying, running away, seeking pity...etc. He explained to us that rule #1 is that the customer is always right and rule #2 If you think you are in the right re read rule #2. And how it doesn't matter if we are in the right, because the customer is always right. We should never ever use these feelings for they take away our agency and weaken our faith. So a couple days later I realized just how bad I was resulting in these feelings and that my faith was truly being weakened and that I had lost my agency, because my feelings had taken control of my situation. So Saturday is rolling around and as We were driving it just hits me, and I am like I am done with this. This isn't my time, and I have the agency to choose how I react. I became happy, and my attitude became positive. The sickness was the same, in fact it started getting worse, but I had a positive attitude. So some baptisms roll around and we have one of our investigators there. It is hot! It is loud with babies and primary kids who are fighting and distracting, and the baptism is in english in which our investigator speaks very little. My companion and I are distracted because we are waiting for the warden Elders to get there with their baptism, and find some seats for ourselves. And then there was an 8 yr old baptism who had met in the chapel to close and they came out and it was just so loud! At the end of the baptism my comp who was pretty ticked off at this point asks our investigator how she feels. In which she says weird and just wants to leave, and just leaves right away. One young man who got baptized too was pretty embarrassed with everything and almost left the baptism. And so it was pretty crazy. But then I notice how the other guy who got baptized was just shining. Grinning from ear to ear despite the many distractions. I noticed the investigator of the other elders who you could just tell was feeling the spirit. Not to mention that he did not understand any english. And I just started thinking well what is the difference? my mind was brought to remembrance of a story in PMG where there was a woman who the missionaries were teaching in the same situation, hot room, flies, running kids and a frantic father...the missionaries were distracted as well, but were both hit with the impression to listen; the woman began to cry and tell how she had done what the missionaries had said. She had read and prayed, and know that the Book of Mormon was true. The Spirit filled the room. I was brought to remembrance of a personal experience I had had not too long ago. As we were doing a church tour and how it just so happened that there was a stake dance at the exact same time. But the spirit became stronger and stronger as we went through the church too a point where none of us heard the people dancing nor the music. And you know it just hit me that God always gives us our agency and the right to feel the Holy Ghost if we so choose. Even when there are variables that you cannot change, such as the distractions in the aforementioned stories. The fact is that the only distractions are those that in our mind, and therefore we are given the responsibility to act and not just be acted upon. I love it!