1 May 2016

Hey everyone,

This next week is Gawai! I guess it is pretty much like Christmas again for Malaysians or something. I'm not really sure. I guess I'll find out though. We had a party for it at the church earlier this week so go look at some of those pictures! 

Something I thought about this week was about commandments. We should graciously accept when God gives us commandments.
For example, the Word of Wisdom, which contains, for this example, not drinking alcohol. So yes of course before people drank alcohol. The awesome thing about having there be a commandment is a few things, first, this means that God loves us and wants us to be happy and sometimes we may ask ourselves, "how do I become happy?", well look at Gods' commandments and that will give you a pretty good idea of that.
Second, because it's a commandment, that means that there is always a way to come to obey that commandment. Like 1 Nephi 3:7, the classic
"I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they mayaccomplish the thing which he commandeth them."

So what this means, God isn't going to say don't drink alcohol if there is no way some people can overcome an addiction to alcohol, since it is now a commandment, that means that there are the resources, physically and most importantly, spiritually, to overcome this. There IS a way. There IS a way to experience the happiness that comes from this! That's just way awesome. 

Third, you can know that through obedience to this, you are PROMISED BLESSINGS. Before, yeah God may have blessed you for not drinking but now there is a promise that you WILL be blessed by obedience to this. That's why there are commandments like that. That's why God gave us prophets to reveal more commandments to us in these last and evil days. It is all for our happiness, do not forget that. The Gospel in it's fullness is with out a doubt upon the Earth and it is SO COOL. 

Don't forget that it is so cool. Learn more about this stuff because I know that there is HUGE happiness that comes. I'm not promising that trials won't come, but like what I have said to some people, the Restored Gospel allows us to have everything necessary to deal with the tahi of the world, and be happy while we do it. It is just so cool so continue to learn about the teachings of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is full and I know that. 

SO glad to be here. I'm coming up on a year in the another month. This has been the fastest year of my life. 

I love you all. 

Love,

Matthew