1/17/11

Ok, well this week was pretty much freaking sweet, like every week cause, yo soy missionero, anyway we didn't have any baptisms but that's cool, because last week we asked everyone for references and we got so many that this whole week was swamped with contacting those references, which is good cause these will be people who will already know and have friends in the church, that's the beauty of that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, my companion Elder Petersen is really funny, and by funny I mean, crazy, like really I love him but he's from Idaho so I think that should tell you a little something of how....special he is at times.....you know that movie; Napoleon Dynamite?  You know in the beginning when he has that action figure on a string and has it trailing behind him on the bus, well ya, he said he used to do that all the time and "it was all sorts of fun, cuz the people behind the bus are thinking:  what?"

So ya, I realized that the scout badge for personal finance was made for missionaries; cuz I have 2 weeks left before my bank account gets replenished and I have a total of $15 to my name.....and no; Ecuador is not THAT 3rd world that I can live on $15 for two weeks.  I mean shoot, I spend anywhere from $10-$20 a week on bus rides cuz Elder Petersen is the district leader and we have to check up on everyone and have district meetings way out in freaking Egypt.....but really the city's name is EGYPT......no hahahaha, but that was pretty funny huh! : )

Ok so for comp study sometimes we read different talks from all kinds of different people, like we read the one from Elder Holland when he says:  "I want it clear that when I stand before God, I declared in the most straight-forward language I could summon, that the Book of Mormon is true" and then we read another one by Cleon Skousen "The Meaning of the Atonement"...it is way good.

Now I never really understood this before but I am sure all of you do so bare with me:

So it talks about what the Atonement really is, and I always thought it was Christ answering for the law of justice, and it is, but what is justice?

It's all the other intelligences of the universe who weren't special enough to be human beings.  It's them, the elements, the raw things of this world, the storm that obeys the will of Christ, the water that changed itself to wine because Christ asked it to, the lion that lays down with the lamb, it's not that God can't forgive us himself, He can, of course.  But the intelligences that do whats asked of them, who don't have bodies, demand that we be perfect, and we can't be, so one who was, who suffered for no reason other than to say to those intelligences "I have suffered that they might not, please let them live with me, for my sake" that's why the world shook when Christ died; because those other intelligences were so sad saying "why?"  "You don't deserve this suffering, you are perfect and we listen to you because we love you".

So when we give a Priesthood blessing, it is us telling the body "be as you should be, healthy" and if we be worthy, it will obey because we hold the same power that organized those intelligences in the first place.

They answer to the Priesthood because it was that, that gave them purpose and organization.

If God just let us come back, the things that answer to God's power, and his power comes from our and their love for Him, would stop listening to Him, and He would cease to be God.

Anyway, you should look it up and read it.  It was soooooooooooooooooo cool anyway.  I'm going to have a sweet week and I hope you do too.

Love you much, people!!!!!!

Elder Nathan R. Church