October 27, 2014

"Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times."

- Martin Luther

Well, this week was really rough. We did not get many people to listen to us, but the people who did were really kind and listened. It was definitely a hard week because I started to really feel homesick for the first time really. I mean, I miss all of you and I love it out here, but I got asked a lot from people about what I am going to do after the mission... so it was really hard to say that I will be here for two years and all that. I sure do love it out here. I love everyday how I get to wake up and help someone grow closer to Christ. I love that I get to bring myself closer to Him everyday too. I have grown to truly love reading the scriptures. I get to read them for hours every day, and I get to share what I learned in them with others.

The big thing that I learned this week was about grace, meaning the grace of God. It started when my companion got a talk about grace. So we started to study that this week. The big thing about grace is that “by grace we are saved.” This is because Christ paid the price for our sins. ALL of us. This means that we can all return to the presence of God. However, there is a scripture in the Book of Mormon that really explains this. 2 Nephi 25:23 – “It is by grace that we are saved, AFTER all we can do” (emphasis added). This does not mean that God is standing there saying, “Two more steps, and you´ve made it to my kingdom.” This means that we will be feeling clean enough to enter, meaning we will all be given the opportunity to accept to enter into the Kingdom of God because we are clean through the atonement of Christ. However, it will be our decision if we will want to STAY in His presence. I never really thought about grace before; but I really studied it this week, and I arrived to this conclusion. We are clean. We can enter. But do we feel comfortable?

I went to EFY twice. (EFY is like a place where people can go to learn more about the gospel of Christ and be apart from the world to truly embrace the gospel and not worry about normal life.) And I got to witness people who were there because they wanted to and others who were simply there because their parents wanted them to be there to try and grow closer to God. I was blessed to witness people grow closer, and people who seemed like they were about to die because they did not feel comfortable being this close to the Spirit of God. I was able to witness people who, after the first day, called home saying that they don’t like it because it is too spiritual. This is what I mean by not wanting to be in His presence.

I am going to pose a question that I heard in general conference that struck me. How would you feel if, in a minute from now, you had a personal interview with Christ? How would you feel? This is what grace is all about. The atonement was made so we can return back to Christ. EVERYONE will receive the resurrection and immortality, but not everyone will receive eternal life. This means for us to LIVE as we once did with our Father in heaven and together as a family... forever.

I have also been studying like a madman about recognizing the Spirit. I found it interesting that it does not say "learning how the spirit speaks to you" or "finding how God speaks to you," but instead it says to recognize the spirit. I have found that we have ALL had a moment in our lives, where God has been speaking to us. But did we recognize it? That is the true question. We have all felt the need to acercarnos (I don’t know how to say that in English anymore!!!) (Note from Lauren: this means to approach) to God. Think; was there a time in your life that you felt the need to make a change in your life for the better? Where did this think come from? I know that it came from the Spirit of God. We must remember how that felt. That is how God speaks to us.

I just wanted to tell you all about what I have learned this week. And of course, as always, work work work, and a bit more work to keep the bad thoughts away.

Fique Firme, Kia Kaha
Stay Strong, Forever Strong

Elder Gale