"Wow--it was sad to go to the temple for the last time for a long time. It was a beautiful experience, and I felt the Spirit, and as I sat in the Celestial room, God taught me that perhaps that is what it was like in the premortal life--gazing at the glory around me, of being in God's house, His presence, and Holy temple--being excited to go forward, knowing it would be difficult, and being grateful for the opportunity to have been in that holy place, but knowing it was necessary to move forward. At the same time, a kind of sadness, of heaviness, at knowing how long of a time I would be away from that hallowed ground.
That thought motivates and inspires me to move forward--it gives me a determination to serve God, to do all I can to return again to the place I love, into the arms of the Father I love. I'm grateful for learning that today.
I also learned, as I pondered, that many times, God's test and Satan's trial is not about which course to choose, but whether or not we will even choose a course. It is a great and devilish tactic of Satan to bombard us with concerns, doubts, hesitations, and fear, so as to stop us from "acting for ourselves and not being acted upon." (2 Nephi 2:26) God is so loving! If we choose a path to take, and start on that path, He will always warn us before we got too far along if it be wrong. But sometimes He wants us to take those steps, to choose, to act, so we aren't told everything we must do, but so we can learn to "choose liberty and eternal life" (2 Nephi 2:27) and learn for ourselves of the blessings of "coming unto Christ...being perfected in Him, and cleansing ourselves of all ungodliness." (Moroni 10)
He will lead us! He is our Father. He won't leave us alone. But He wants us to choose--parents cannot tell their children everything, or they will never learn for themselves. I'm grateful for the wonderful house of learning, the house of God. His Holy Temple."
I hope it is all right that I share that entry with you! I felt like I learned so much this week. Those thoughts came from both the temple, as well as a talk by Elder Bednar that we watched recently. He mentioned how he sees a lot of young people who want so much to know if the thought they are having is a spiritual prompting, and they wait to try and figure it out and end up not acting. I can be a lot like that sometimes, so I really needed to hear that. He promised that if we be good boys and good girls, if we keep our covenants, if we keep the commandments, then God will not allow us to fail; as it says in D&C 80 "ye cannot go amiss."
I testify that that is true! So I am resolving to act, to trust that God guides me. Elder Bednar also testified in this talk that God is so much more involved in our lives than we can comprehend.
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| The package was soooo sweet! You all are the best. |
Imagine if you were in Mexico, growing a ghost pepper crop, and you took all of your ghost pepper, and burned them in the fire, and then took a live coal from that fire, stirred in some lava, and put it on a chip. My hot sauce was about a third of that. It felt like my mouth went into shock. It was seriously like ridiculous--I had never experienced something that hot. My face turned red, my eyes started crying--I looked like I had been sobbing! My face went numb or something, because it felt like it was vibrating. I ran with the other elder in my zone (who had apparently only had like 2 drops--deceptive person!) and we started eating some cinnamon rolls he had. But apparently (I learned this talking to some elders from Mexico about a week later, aka a week too late), sweet makes spicy worse. It seemed to help, though, and provided some momentary relief. I had to stay by the drinking fountain and keep drinking water until it went away. Even after that, my stomach felt hot. Yikes. Lesson learned.
Well, time is short; I've got to go, so I'll talk to you next from Korea!
Love you
Nate
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