First things first, some of you had a question about the corn. "why is the corn in the street?". Not only corn, but also rice, is left in the street for one simple purpose: to dry it. The people here leave on the road for multiple days and let it dry. So often times the whole road is covered in corn, rice, and other things. Unsanitary, yes. But boring, nope!
This week has gone by fairly quickly! In the picture I'm sitting and driving something called a "Kuliglig". All the farmers here have one because they are much cheaper than tractors. In fact, you can't buy them, you have to build them!
First things first, some of you had a question about the corn. "why is the corn in the street?". Not only corn, but also rice, is left in the street for one simple purpose: to dry it. The people here leave on the road for multiple days and let it dry. So often times the whole road is covered in corn, rice, and other things. Unsanitary, yes. But boring, nope!
This week has gone by fairly quickly! In the picture I'm sitting and driving something called a "Kuliglig". All the farmers here have one because they are much cheaper than tractors. In fact, you can't buy them, you have to build them!
This week we have really pushed ourselves as a companionship to have all the lessons we teach with a member present and participating. We have also decided to "work around the members" in Utah this isn't a problem because like spiders "you're never more than 3 feet away from Mormon". But in my area we have found the areas which have a high member count and we have been teaching their neighbors including the members in most of the lessons.
One thing I realized this week is the danger of pride. We all know and hear very often from prophets, leaders, and other members that pride is a huge danger to everyone, both spiritually and physically. But this week it hit me like a brick and quite frankly made me sad when we talked to a less-active sister about reasons she has a hard time going to church. As it turns out she has work on Sundays, but as she continued on she started to cry and said that certain members had been chastising her and her family. Some even said she wasn't worthy to pray anymore. This is obviously an extreme case, but it scared this poor sister from attending church, how sad is that? In the Book of Mormon we read countless stories of Laman and Lemuel beating Nephi with rods, tying him to posts and abusing him because of "the hardness of their hearts". Take note that Laman and Lemuel both kept the commandments but were very reluctant to and murmured a lot. The problem sometimes lie in the fact that we sometimes think of ourselves as judges, or regulators of those who we think are "below us". To be honest we all have imperfections and need the Atonement as much as anyone else in this world.Because of pride we also needed a restoration of the gospel. Prideful men killed the righteous and decided that their beliefs were "better" than those of Christ. But as we know, there is a cure; Faith. Something I wrote in my journal is this:
"Pride destroys,
Faith restores."
-Elder Johnson 2015
Through faith, Joseph Smith was able to restore the church. Through faith, we become eligible to receive the blessing of the Atonement in our lives. Through faith, we can be better than we are. But faith isn't only a cure, but its also prevention as well. Please, if you have problems with pride, (I admit to being one of those people sometimes), fix it, nothing good comes from it.
Mahal Kita!
Elder Johnson