This week was solid. Honestly not a ton of remarkable things have happened. Lots of little miracles, so many that I can't really enumerate them all. We've been teaching a decent amount, though not as much as I'd like. M____ and B____ were really busy this week, I guess along with several other people. I think it's because Mothers Day is a huge holiday in Hispanic culture and it's on May 10th, so the entire weekend was busy for most people. They basically throw the moms birthday parties. Or like big family get-togethers. Kinda like our parties but more Hispanic. The biggest difference is the type of food and the volume of the music haha.
We had a really good lesson with S____ this week. I basically taught him the Plan of Salvation, but it came out in a story form. It was really cool and I felt the Spirit testify to us very strongly. The reason it was so powerful was because I focused every point on Jesus Christ and how He made it all possible. I really liked that experience. So did S____; he had some very good things to say about us at the end. It was interesting though because at the end he called us ángeles, and he asked us to never fall away, even though he technically doesn't 100% believe in God (he basically does but won't admit it for certain). He's very poetic too.
President Welch gave us an amazing training this last Friday about overcoming our fears and loving God. I could send pictures of my notes, but I don't think it would do it justice. I told him he should write a book about it. The gist of it is that we need to be willing to face our fears, but also be obedient. Obedience without facing our fears becomes Pharisaic as we obey the letter but avoid the spirit of the law and seek to justify our actions as obedient when in reality we are ignoring what God asks. If we are willing to face fears but we aren't obedient, that leads to deviant behavior. He says that if we're in that quadrant of the graph in 5 years he said he will become our worst nightmare haha. So deviant is quadrant I, Pharisees are quadrant III, and what is quadrant II? Well, it's the fetal position. We're just chilling and sitting there unable to do anything. That's marinating in our problems and complaining. At best it's complacency. We want to be in the top right of the graph, quadrant IV. That is love. It's doing what's right no matter the consequences. The process from the law of Moses to there is loving. Trusting God. That's where our divine potential lies. If we trust God and we have a sin that we need to confess and overcome, we will go out and confess that sin despite the possibility of shame and heartache. We love and help that person even if doing so makes us unpopular or interferes with lesser objectives. We talk to that person even if it seems REALLY awkward, but we know the Spirit told us to. The fear never really goes away but as we obey God he gives us power. I'm attaching the graph. My handwriting is bad but what I'm describing makes more sense with the visual I think.
Well, that's basically the week. I'm super nervous to sing on Wednesday. I'm confident in my abilities as a (decent) singer but I'm not so sure about my ability to sing a triplet (what's it called when it's a duet but three people?). But hey, I just talked about facing fears, right? I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Liddle
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