Dear Family and Friends,
Well a story and an update. These past few weeks I've been dealing with an infection. What started as an ingrown toe nail turned into an infection on the toe itself, which spread to my ankle giving me a cyst, and to my knee which got acne, and eventually fund its way to my forearm. But, the good news is that its almost gone! I know most of you re probably really grossed out by now, but a lot of you have asked if I've gotten sick or injured, well this is proof that I'm still a human.
This week I was reading in the President Hunter teachings book. I liked what he has said about adversity being the thing that moves us forward. But most of all I like a quote which he said that the road of trials is the one that points us to Him, its the straight and narrow path. I find comfort in the words of Isiah who, speaking as the Savior, says " My ways are not your ways, neither my thoughts". The Lord knows us enough to relate to our afflictions, he's felt them, and as such He knows the cure, or sometimes the pain medication. But one thing that I found interesting was the story of Jesus healing the man at the pool of Bethesda. The man tells the Savior what is wrong, but the Savior first asks (in normal english) "Do you want to be healed?" I feel sometimes hopelessness leaves us in a pit where we start to think its better just to stay where we are, that somehow our effort to help ourselves isn't even worth it. This is one of Satan's biggest lies, that effort and real intent means nothing to God, that God is only concerned with outside results. The reality is in the opposite, God is more concerned with our intent and faith (through actions), then how much the world measures our actions to be. He is more concerned with us hitting "our" 100% than hitting the "world's" 100%. The key is being happy when we did all we could, and allowing God to help when we fall short.
This week we also got bikes again! We bike over 25K everyday, so my quads are coming back in!
Mahal ko kayo!
Elder Trevor Kent Johnson (The Weirdest Missionary You Know)
Well a story and an update. These past few weeks I've been dealing with an infection. What started as an ingrown toe nail turned into an infection on the toe itself, which spread to my ankle giving me a cyst, and to my knee which got acne, and eventually fund its way to my forearm. But, the good news is that its almost gone! I know most of you re probably really grossed out by now, but a lot of you have asked if I've gotten sick or injured, well this is proof that I'm still a human.
This week I was reading in the President Hunter teachings book. I liked what he has said about adversity being the thing that moves us forward. But most of all I like a quote which he said that the road of trials is the one that points us to Him, its the straight and narrow path. I find comfort in the words of Isiah who, speaking as the Savior, says " My ways are not your ways, neither my thoughts". The Lord knows us enough to relate to our afflictions, he's felt them, and as such He knows the cure, or sometimes the pain medication. But one thing that I found interesting was the story of Jesus healing the man at the pool of Bethesda. The man tells the Savior what is wrong, but the Savior first asks (in normal english) "Do you want to be healed?" I feel sometimes hopelessness leaves us in a pit where we start to think its better just to stay where we are, that somehow our effort to help ourselves isn't even worth it. This is one of Satan's biggest lies, that effort and real intent means nothing to God, that God is only concerned with outside results. The reality is in the opposite, God is more concerned with our intent and faith (through actions), then how much the world measures our actions to be. He is more concerned with us hitting "our" 100% than hitting the "world's" 100%. The key is being happy when we did all we could, and allowing God to help when we fall short.
This week we also got bikes again! We bike over 25K everyday, so my quads are coming back in!
Mahal ko kayo!
Elder Trevor Kent Johnson (The Weirdest Missionary You Know)