Bulgaria?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! What language do they
even speak there? Bulgarian?
Wow what a call! How amazing! What's even more
amazing is how right it feels. I'm not sure how, but it is almost as if I saw
it coming even though I didn't. I know T will do amazing things there. As much
as I wanted him to come be with me, I know that the Lord sends people to those
that need them, not to those that already get to spend eternity with
them.
I am super pumped
to have heard Tanner's call! I've been waiting for like forever. Leaving in
August? Dang. That means we will overlap by a few months over three years. My
year mark is in June and my year-to-go mark is on May 26 (HOW DID I
ALREADY GET SO CLOSE TO THAT WHERE DID MY FIRST YEAR GO??!!) I try not to dwell
on my death day (we call finishing our missions dying out here) because each
time I do I realize how little time I have to become the missionary I want to
become. Treasure the time on your mission, both of you with calls. We call a
mission a sacrifice, but since I came out here I've realized that it is just
another one of the tremendous blessings that the Lord just keeps dumping on his
children when they are obedient. King Benjamin was right, and it's unfair!
Every blessing is connected to a commandment, but I often feel that the stick
is lopsided. Every time we try to serve him he blesses us so much more than we
really earned. It just keeps on coming until all we can do is thank the Lord
for his goodness and keep obeying.
Sorry I'm going to rant on this subject for a
minute. People, even in the Church sometimes, People see sin as moving us into
the negatives on the slide-scale of life, and obedience and blessings bringing
us back to zero on the scale. This view makes us seem entitled to blessings and
doesn't give enough credit to the Lord. Yes sin moves us backwards, but so does
a simple lack of diligence. When we obey commandments and seek to apply the
atonement we don't rest at "where we are supposed to be" we rocket up
into the stratosphere of the positives. If we don't maintain our level of
diligence and obedience we don't get to keep that level of blessings. We slide
back to zero, and as we sin we then enter the negatives. Thus will all men be
judged according to our works. Not according to whether we we stayed above
zero, for in the end every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus
is the Christ. All will eventually accept his sacrifice and repent, whether in
this life or in spirit prison. None (save the sons of Perdition) can escape the
grace of Christ, which will gather all of God's children, cleanse their sins,
and drag the wicked, writhing in the agony of insufficiency and unpreparedness,
back into the presence of the father. The wicked will then wish that the rocks
and the mountains might fall on them and hide them, that they do not enter the
presence of their God. Thus We are not judged by whether or not we are in the
negatives, but by how far into the positives we go. The ordinances and
covenants we make allow God to pour out blessings even more abundantly. The
Atonement of Christ CANNOT be a passive thing. Today is literally, as Amulek
(or Alma?) said, the day to prepare to meet God. The minimum is the telestial
kingdom, and we use the gospel to climb from there. Thus Satan's plan is
brought to even greater folly with this understanding. Without agency the telestial
kingdom was all we could merit, if even that.
Sorry about that guys. That is the culmination
of everything I've learned out here about the gospel suddenly and unexpectedly
being thrown onto the screen. I hope you'll forgive me, and correct me if my
understanding is not correct.
Had a good week. Transfer calls this Saturday.
Probably won't move.
Love you guys!!
Elder Hardy
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