Wearing Myself Out In The Service Of God! :)
Good day mates! It was another crazy week! I am always amazed about how much can happen in one day! It is truly astonishing. If you use your time wisely, there are infinite things you can do in a day! Time is precious!
I also hope everyone is enjoying the cold weather in Utah! It blows my mind to think that it is cold over there! It has been a really mild Australian summer and I have been loving every minute of it! Such nice days!
Fun Australian things:
-Otter pops are called zooper doopers
-Nike the shoe brand is called nik not nike over here. It is spelled the same but the Australians just pronounce it differently like everything else they say haha. But man it is hard to get used to people saying nik instead nike haha.
-Australian elevators are built differently haha. Instead of level 1 being ground floor it is another button like G or something. So all the foreigners get confused and always push 1. And the elevators always have mirrors so we all just stare at ourselves as we use the elevator….the elevator that goes up to our branch has mirrors from floor to ceiling….we use the elevator probably upwards of 15 times a day and so we get to brush up and stare at ourselves before heading out to Rundle mall!
Weekly highlights:
-We have a weekly activity on Monday and last Monday it was a really big activity because we were celebrating Chinese new year! All the members were coming and we invited all our friends and the other Elders invited everyone also! So it was a big activity that had been planned for weeks now! People were bringing tons of food and things! And then an hour before we get a call telling us that the building the branch is in was out of power! It randomly just lost power and no one knows why…we were like nooooo! It was a crazy hour or two, but we ended up switching the location to another church building 10 minutes away….we had to let all our friends know and we were coordinating rides….it was a nightmare…I ended the night exhausted from the stress of it all! Probably the most stressful Monday night on the mission so far!
-The mission President and the AP’s gave us a brand new Elder from Tonga to take care of for 1 day! He spoke no english so communication was very hard. Then the next day we dropped him off at the airport at like 6 something, so that meant we had to be up at 5:00am sharp! Wow, I was tired the next day haha. All these 5 o'clock airport runs are getting me worn out! But I am happy to help the mission President further the work! We walked this Elder to his gate and watched him board the plane!
-It is the Adelaide fringe!! The Adelaide festival month. This is like the biggest event in Adelaide for the whole year and the city has been turned upside down for it. It is absolutely wild! The city is packed with people. People all over the world come to this event! The mall has always been crazy, but the craziness level has been knocked up 100 notches haha. There are street performers every 300 yards and they are doing crazy things and everyone is sucked in and watches them, therefore they don't want to be bothered or talked to. Then there was a beer bar set up yesterday…. all the crazy people have come out and are on the loose! It should be an interesting month of finding new people to teach with this new opposition! There is a casino down the street from the mall and I can only imagine how packed that place is right now!
-I have been in the city long enough that all the homeless people know me and so an inside man of the homeless people told me that the police came in 4 weeks ago and took out all the drug dealers and drugs so all the crazy people have sobered up and are out for revenge….the city is getting more and more dangerous by the week haha.
-We had an amazing lesson with Dean and he is sooo ready for baptism! We are going to the beach with him today and he is buying us Thai food and what he considers the best ice cream in Adelaide! Exciting times!
-Had some great lessons and are hoping we can continue to help our friends progress to baptism! However, coming to church is a big commitment that people struggle with….needless to say, I will never look at going to church the same again!
-We got to play basketball with our Chinese neighbors Saturday morning and we destroyed them this time! We lost last week and I was bound and determined not to lose this week haha. After we played, we shared with them the Book of Mormon and they were interested! Excited to share the gospel in normal and natural ways with them over the coming weeks.
-So many mini miracles and tender mercies on Saturday! The Lord is truly in the details of our lives and is watching out for us! He truly loves us so much!
-We got to go give a blessing to a member in the hospital and that was a tender experience!
-The missionaries had to do a musical number in church and so I played Called to Serve and they sang to it! Pretty epic!
-We had MLC!! It was pretty epic! Fun times being with President and Sister Johansson and all the zone leaders and STLs for a couple hours! Loved all the training!
Sadly I ran out of time to write a super long email today because I am going to the beach with Dean!
Spiritual thought:
Here is a good thought from my mission president.
The church is His (Jesus Christ's) people! The church is here to facilitate the ordinances! The church serves us and we don't serve the church! Being a member of the church should not be a burden, but a blessing!
Think about that!
The adversary uses many tactics to lead us away from the Savior….the Book of Mormon powerfully explains those tactics and how to avoid them!
Apathy- more powerful than sin. It is being comfortable in your own nothingness. Satan is a god of nothing.
Our Heavenly Father loves for us to progress and become! That is what the whole plan of salvation is about! Becoming and progressing! Don't be lazy and apathetic when it comes to spiritual things. Many of us can work hard temporally, but be spiritually apathetic! Satan loves when we are doing nothing to grow and become better! He does not want us to repent and experience the joy of daily repentance that our Prophet has invited us to experience!
Apathy is the worst adversary! You are either progressing or regressing. There is no middle ground. There is no pausing on the path. Please, I plead with you to evaluate your life and do the things necessary to move forward spiritually! There is nothing of a bigger importance! Eternity is on the line! Don't let the world convince you that this life is all that matters! There is no such thing as fence sitting in the gospel of Jesus Christ! Don't be a fence sitter!
Mosiah 5:13 For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart?
You either know the master or you don't! You can't serve two masters at the same time! You are either serving one or the other….what one are you serving?
2 Nephi 26:22. “He Leadeth Them by the Neck with a Flaxen Cord” While serving in the Seventy, Elder Carlos E. Asay explained how a flaxen cord is made and becomes a yoke of unbreakable oppression: “The first wrongdoing is like a single strand of flaxen thread; it is easily broken and thrown aside. But each time the wrong is repeated another strand is intertwined around the first, and on and on it goes until an almost unbreakable cord of multi-strands is woven. ‘The chains of habit,’ said Samuel Johnson, ‘are too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken’”
The imagery is so powerful! The Book of Mormon exposes clearly the cunning tactics of the adversary!
Spiritual psychosis
Psychosis is a "severe mental disorder including delusions and loss of contact with reality"
So spiritual psychosis is when you lose touch or contact with spiritual things. You are delusioned with the things of the world. Don't let the thinking of the world influence your thinking! Please draw upon the power of Jesus Christ to remain apart from the world!
2 Nephi 31:13. “Full Purpose of Heart, Acting No Hypocrisy”
“Full purpose of heart” suggests a total commitment to Jesus Christ, with pure and sincere motives, rather than only pretending to follow the Lord. President Marion G. Romney observed such hypocrisy: “There are individuals who try to serve the Lord without offending the devil”. Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin emphasized the importance of sincerely following the Lord: “Do we, indeed, actually live the gospel, or do we just manifest the appearance of righteousness so that those around us assume we are faithful when, in reality, our hearts and unseen actions are not true to the Lord’s teachings? “Do we take on only the ‘form of godliness’ while denying the ‘power thereof’? [Joseph Smith—History 1:19]. “Are we righteous in fact, or do we feign obedience only when we think others are watching? “The Lord has made it clear that He will not be fooled by appearances, and He has warned us not to be false to Him or to others. He has cautioned us to be wary of those who project a false front, who put on a bright pretense that hides a darker reality. We know that the Lord ‘looketh on the heart’ and not on the ‘outward appearance’ [1 Samuel 16:7]”
I learned something very important and interesting this week….it is about God's divine love. God's Divine love is perfect, universal, infinite, enduring, and so much more!
But I have a question to pose….does God love us unconditionally??
The answer is a resounding no! There is no such thing as unconditional love!
Everything has a condition! Take the famous scripture of John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
God giving us His Son is a condition, us believing in Him is a condition (you either believe or you don't….you either perish or you don't….you either receive everlasting life or you don't! Everything is a condition!)
God loves us but not unconditionally!
President Nelson has spoken on this topic!
“While divine love can be called perfect, infinite, enduring, and universal, it cannot correctly be characterized as unconditional. The word does not appear in the scriptures. On the other hand, many verses affirm that the higher levels of love the Father and the Son feel for each of us—and certain divine blessings stemming from that love—are conditional.”
The word unconditional love does not show up in any scriptures!! It does not exist because unconditional love from God doesn't exist!
This spiritual thought has been about Satan's tactics….one of his sly tactics is to convince people that God's love is unconditional. Very very sneaky! Don't let Satan convince you into thinking God's love is unconditional! That is what the world would have you think! They want you to think that you can do anything and have God love you and bless you!
President Nelson stated
“Understanding that divine love and blessings are not truly “unconditional” can defend us against common fallacies such as these: “Since God’s love is unconditional, He will love me regardless …”; or “Since ‘God is love,’ He will love me unconditionally, regardless …” These arguments are used by anti-Christs to woo people with deception. Nehor, for example, promoted himself by teaching falsehoods: He “testified unto the people that all mankind should be saved at the last day, … for the Lord had created all men, … and, in the end, all men should have eternal life.” Sadly, some of the people believed Nehor’s fallacious and unconditional concepts. In contrast to Nehor’s teachings, divine love warns us that “wickedness never was happiness.” Jesus explains, “Come unto me and be ye saved; … except ye shall keep my commandments, … ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
President Nelson says it better than me…
”God declared that His work and glory is “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” Thanks to the Atonement, the gift of immortality is unconditional. The greater gift of eternal life, however, is conditional. In order to qualify, one must deny oneself of ungodliness and honor the ordinances and covenants of the temple. The resplendent bouquet of God’s love—including eternal life—includes blessings for which we must qualify, not entitlements to be expected unworthily. Sinners cannot bend His will to theirs and require Him to bless them in sin. If they desire to enjoy every bloom in His beautiful bouquet, they must repent.”
I promise that God loves us more than we can even comprehend! It is that love that caused Him to send His only begotten Son for us. It is out of love that Jesus performed the Atonement for us allowing us the opportunity to repent. It is the divine love of God that makes everything possible for us. Love is a powerful thing. It is out of love that we keep the commandments. It is out of love that we serve others. The list of things that love can do is infinite. I invite you to all ponder the love of God. I invite you to consider what commandments you can better keep to show your love to God. God gave us commandments because He loves us.
Here is the talk by President Nelson of you want to read more
https://www.
Keep your life simple! Spend time with your family!
I hope and pray that everyone has a great week this week! Love and miss you all! Keep up the good work and keep remembering what is most important and worthwhile! Remember what matters most in life!
Here are a couple photos from the week…
https://photos.app.goo.gl/
Cheers,
-Elder Jones (zhang zhanglao)
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