Well, I'm just going to apologize right up front, today's email is going to be shorter than a munchkin without any legs.
The
reason it will be short, and the reason this is a day late, is because
of transfers. Let me take you back in time so to speak, to 7 weeks ago,
when I sent an email to you all explaining what transfers are. So I won't
waste any time explaining it again, because you all know how I like to
be as concise as possible, and how I never like to take up an unnecessary amount of time when
I explain things as I write these emails, especially when I am on a
time crunch like I am today, as I mentioned earlier in this very email.
So
I will just hop right on to the point, the point being the transfer
news. But before I do that, I want to turn your attention to the title
of this email. Go ahead, take a look, I can wait.
Alright,
so now that you've reminded yourself of what this week's emails title
is, we can discuss what that title might mean. Now, if we were sitting
together in person in a lovely cozy little room in comfy chairs, perhaps
eating some tasty food in the dessert category, I would ask what your
thoughts are, because I would be very interested. However, I'm in
Arizona, and you're in somewhere else. And unfortunately there are no
comfy chairs or tasty foods in the dessert category to be found.
So
I will talk about it myself, and you can think about it. So "winds of
change" does not actually mean the kind of change that happens when you
change your clothes, as you might have guessed. It's actually a
different kind of change. And today it means that there are lots of
changes happening as a result of Transfers. I capitalized it on purpose
to make it more scary looking.
So, the transfer news is...............
I will be staying here in Paradise Valley. Hip hip!.... (you have to say hooray. Do it.) Hip Hip!....(Do it again.)
However,
Elder Bower will not be. He will be headed up to the mountains, where
there's actually snow! Yes, in Arizona! Crazy right? And so we will now
have a moment of silence for him. But since you are reading this in the
form of an email, I will do my best to convey that silence with you.
Alright I'm getting a little carried away here.
Also, Elder Dougherty who lives in our apartment will be leaving as well, also to the mountains, so that's sad. Additionally,
Elder Ludiker the other Spanish misisonary in the apartment, is the new
District Leader and will be training a brand spanking new missionary,
straight from the MTC. So that will be fun. Also, my new
companion is named Elder Ellis. He's coming from the mountains actually.
He'll get here tomorrow, I'm not sure when exactly though. He'll be
coming down the mountain when he comes I guess.
Oh man, I'm laughing way too hard at that one.
Anyway,
lots of changes. Lots of changes. It's sad to see people go, but it'll
be exciting though to have new experiences and meet even more people. So
it's exciting.
Well, before I send this, I would like to quick share some thoughts from this week.
It all started when our Mission President, President Robinson, invited
us all to read a super awesome article titled "Developing the Faith to
Reap." So I read and studied it, and it was just amazing. I learned so
many great insights about faith from this article, and also throughout
my mission so far, that's been something I've had on my mind a lot and
it's something I've really learned a lot about.
And as I
said, I don't have a ton of time to write today, clearly, as you can see
from this extremely short email, but I just wanted to share a couple
quotes from the article, but then I want to invite you all to read the
article, and study it for yourself. So before I jump into those quotes,
I'll real quick explain sort of what "Faith to Reap" means. And
essentially what it means is that in order to reap or to access the
blessings that our Heavenly Father wants to give us, we need to have
faith. But the article explains the kind of faith we must have. So here are a couple of my most favorite quotes out of the many that are in here, that explain that better than I can:
"There
seem to be two distinct levels of faith. The first level is the faith
to try, the faith to thrust in our sickles. The second level is the
faith to do. It is more than the faith to thrust in our sickle—it is
the faith to reap."
"First, unlike the
faith to thrust in our sickles, the faith to reap is not faith in ourselves. It is not the same as self-confidence or positive mental
attitude. It is not even faith in our families or friends—all of which
are good. The faith to reap is faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement.
It is faith in His power, not ours."
Especially
that last part, that is the most important part. Faith must be in Jesus
Christ. This is something that I've noticed and realized so much. For
example at the end of the Book of Mormon, when the prophet Moroni is
preparing to seal up the record, he writes his final testimony and he
leaves a promise that if we want to learn for ourselves if the Book of
Mormon really is the word of God, and really is true, we just need to
pray and ask God, "and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real
intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto
you, by the power of the Holy Ghost."(Moroni 10:4) This never
totally made sense I don't think. I guess I always saw the word faith
and didn't think too much of it. But part of the promise is that if we
have faith in Christ, we can learn that the Book of Mormon is true.
That's faith in Jesus Christ, it's not faith in the Book of Mormon, its
not faith in Moroni, it's not faith in Joseph Smith. It is faith in
Jesus Christ. President Robinson said one
time, "Our faith must be in Jesus Christ, not in outcomes." That
is so true. If our faith is in the Savior, and that is our foundation,
everything else falls into place. And true faith in Jesus Christ leads
us to action. God wants to bless us. He does. Except we can't expect to
be blessed if we never do anything to show that we might be appreciative
of those blessings. I know how important, and vital faith in
Jesus Christ is. It's something I'm still learning about and still
working on, but I know it's true. And I've seen the blessings in my life
and in my family's lives, because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which
begins with Faith in Christ.
I also know that the Book of
Mormon is true. I've read it and prayed about it many times and I know
that Moroni's promise is true. It really does contain the words of
Christ. And my answer has come not really in one specific moment, but
throughout my life as I've been able to see my blessings. To see what
the teachings contained in the Book of Mormon, the teachings of Jesus
Christ, have done for me and for my life. The Book of Mormon is such an
amazing companion to the Bible. Together they provide many wonderful
testimonies of the Savior Jesus Christ, and there is so much that we can
learn from those scriptures.
Well, that's all I've got. I guess that it didn't end up being quite as short as I thought it would be.
Oh yeah, here's the link to that article!:
I hope you all have a fantastic day today, and a fantastic week!
Til next week,
~Elder Oswald
We finally got some pictures this week too!
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| Dee's baptism. |
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| Zena's baptism. |
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| Playing chess with Elder Bower. |
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| Elder Bower and Elder Oswald at the top of the mountain after their early morning hike couple of weeks ago. |
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| Face masks. 😊 |
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