Daily Bread

Scripture study, prayer, and going to church seem like such simple things.  They are primary answers.  They sometimes get put on the back burner and thought of as something that can be done some other time.  This is wrong.  
We teach our investigators that the three essential things to do in their life to receive peace and strengthen their relationship with God is: read the scriptures, pray, and go to church.  If it is so life-altering important to them now, it is of equal importance to us.  Each day we should be strengthening our relationship with our Heavenly Father.   He is literally our Father, and He wants to hear from us.   Not just to bless the food or to have a good night's rest, but to report, repent, and to pour out our heart to Him.  We need to ask Him for guidance.  He should be a guiding force in our everyday lives.
How do we get to know Him better?  By studying His word.  Something one of our less active members said to me that I loved was that "we wouldn't have the scriptures if they weren't necessary."  He is right.  Would so much pain and suffering gone into writing, finding, and publishing the scriptures if they were just meant to sit on the shelf gathering dust?  No.  They are essential for our spiritual well-being.  I would dare to say that if we are not reading our scriptures regularly, we are in a state of personal apostasy.  We need God.  Through Him all things are possible.
Church.  Sometimes it can seem just a little too routine.  A little too long.  But I would point you to a scripture in the Book of Mormon.  "the preaching of the word has a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just--yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them."  (Alma 31:5)  If we let it, going to church can be one of the most powerful things of our life. 
Now, I might be up on a soap box right now, but it is because I know this to be true.  I have seen how doing these three things can change lives.  About a week after I got here, I met Patricia.  She got baptized several years ago and has been less active for quite sometime.  When we started out she was praying every once and a while, reading her scriptures sometimes, and not going to church at all.  Now, a month into it, she is praying multiple times a day, reading her scriptures multiple times in the week, and coming to church!  On Monday night when we saw her again I marveled at her transformation.  She is so much happier.   I hadn't even noticed how downtrodden and depressed she had looked before, and I bet she hadn't either.  It was by doing these three simple things that she got brightness in her eyes and a more genuine smile on her face.  She is excited!  The bishop is even helping her get a job!  She has been exceedingly blessed just in the last few weeks.  This is the kind of change that happens when we partake of our daily bread.  We may think we are doing just fine, we may feel that we are happy, but until we do these things we have no idea of the full potential of our happiness.
I promise that if we do these things we will be happier.  Our lives will improve.  Our relationship with our Heavenly Father will grow stronger.  I love the Lord and I am so grateful for my knowledge of His church restored here in the latter days.   My prayer is that all of you evaluate your spiritual well-being.  Are you partaking of your daily bread? 

As you can see, I have started a blog.

As you can see, I have now started a blog. Ha. Jokes on you, you will all be hearing from me a lot more than you thought you would.  You cannot escape me.

I have learned something over the past couple weeks. The Lord takes care of His missionaries. I mean, I expected that He would keep us safe and guide us to people who need our help, but what I didn't
realize is that it is much more intimate than that.  God watches over us and helps us with everything.  Even down to the little things like when my companion's shoe finally gave out and got a hole in the bottom. Through a series of circumstances, He provided her with new, very nice and expensive rain boots for free, all in the same day.  Or when we got a flat tire and we were able to role right into the gas station with grace and no complications. As we were getting the spare and the jack out of the trunk my companion prayed, "please Lord, teach me how to change a tire."  Less than a minute later a delightful gentleman walked up to us and offered to teach us how to change a tire. Heavenly Father answered our humble and kind of desperate prayer. Or when we were driving and got right into a bus's blind spot. It started merging into our lane and we just about got smashed between it and a large truck. But, in a seemingly impossible move, we barely made it through. It was crazy. I swear our car was squished somehow. Like the Knight Bus on Harry Potter, that is exactly what it felt like. Both my companion and I looked at each other with awe. We both knew immediately that God and His angels were keeping us safe. God looks after His missionaries.

Now these are just a few things that He has helped us with over the past month. And some might say that they are just coincidences. But we have a saying in our mission: God doesn't do random.  Or, as Taylor
and I like to quote from Sherlock, when Mycroft asks "and what do we say about coincidences, Sherlock? And the detective answers "the universe is rarely so lazy."  Now this quote has popped into my head
many times over the last couple weeks. But I can kind of tweak it to missionary life.  "God is rarely so lazy", but God is not lazy at all. In fact, He is the exact opposite. He is constantly looking after us and blessing our lives. Heavenly Father has His hand in every part of our lives. He has given us everything, including His Son.  He is all powerful, all knowing, and He is our Father.  We are His children. We have the potential to become like Him and He sees that in us. He cares so deeply for us that what is important to us, is important to Him. This is my testimony. I have experienced too much, felt too much joy and overwhelming peace and assurance that I could never deny it. There is a God, and He is our Heavenly Father.  May we each try to draw closer to Him by learning of His Son Jesus Christ, and praying to Him. How long has it been since you spoke to your Father in Heaven?