Nov 27, 2016

This was a great week. Thanksgiving was celebrated at Elder and Sister Child's house. It rocked my socks. Some great things happened this week. One of the main investigators we are working with right now is doing awesome. She is progressing a ton because she has really sacrifice some time to do what we challenge her to do. And she is seeing the blessings that come from it! She is so happy and loves learning. She is starting to share with her family who before weren't open to us. It's amazing what the Gospel can push us to do. 

Along with that, something I have been learning a lot about this past week is just the truth of God desiring us to become like Him. We look at those righteous prophets who wrote the scriptures and sometimes see them as just inspired writers we can learn essential characteristics from, (although they are), we must not forget that they are people just as we are. The only difference is really, they are called by God and they have an understanding and are allowing the Gospel to make them into the children of God that He wants them to be. The greatest thing is, if we are following God, we will not be left with weaknesses or short comings when our time on Earth is finished and it is time to move on. Then will we obtain the greatest happiness that God could ever offer us. I had a drawing I put together in my journal this week that i will try to explain. It had one circle representing the Earth. As we know, Earth is a temporal place. Our happiness is only limited to what is found inside the circle. Then outside of the circle and going on in infinite space around the circle is the eternal elements of Heaven and realm of God. The happiness and peace discovered there is never ending. It has no limits like the Earth. So. Obviously, we are all on Earth. How can we access that eternal realm from this limited Earth? Well, the answer is WE can''t. By ourselves with the insignificant power that man on Earth has, cannot access that area. We are limited to this Earth and the small joys and pleasures we can find here. Some of us are so used to those pleasures of the world that we are satisfied with it so we don't know that there can be anything better. God has created a way. A perfect way. A way that allows us to not only access that infinite happiness and joy, but a way to appreciate it for it's priceless value. That is only through something not found on this Earth but given to us from that Eternal Realm. The Gospel. Only the full Gospel will enable us to access that happiness. That is why we must use this span of our lives to find that true Gospel because we must believe that there is SOMETHING better for us. If we think we are a good place in our life at this moment, we may be constraining ourselves with our worldly vision. Break away from the World. Remember what Christ says in John 16 that if the we were of the world, we would be loved, but we are not of the world when we choose to follow Christ and the evil in the world wants to constrain us to this limited pleasure of this world. My momma sent me a quote that said to the effect that we must ask, what would Jesus do, but then be brave enough to follow the answer. Something like that. I hope my thoughts are making sense. If you get anything from this, just get that the Gospel, works. If you think it doesn't work for you, there's something you're doing that is holding back the blessings that are promised. God wouldn't give us teachings that only worked half the time. 

Anyway, there's a rant!
I love where I am, we have been having success both in finding but also within ourselves. We have set some great roots in the foundation of success in this area and it is such a great feeling. 

Something to read this week if you have time,  it the August Liahona this year (church magazine, Should be able to find it online) It's called "Being a Woman: an Eternal Perspective". Yeah, i read it. Wasn't sure if I should but I thought, what the heck. It is a REALLY GOOD article. Go read it. 

Also, Go to Mormon.org . The church is doing an awesome campaign for Christmas. Go look at it and do it! 

Okay, that's it. Love you all. 

Love,

Elder Hanks