Hello family!
First off, yes I got the package. And yes, about half of it is already in my belly :) Thanks so much! So how is life back to normal without lots of vacations to sunny beaches and Baltimore. I guess Baltimore wasn´t really a vacation, but it was something different and exciting. Things here are going really well. We just got transfers, which is the hardest, most time consuming part of the office, but it really did go smoothly. We worked hard and got finished at about 12:30 last night. A new record! And it was the biggest transfer ever! So basically we rocked it. So let me explain the camera. I lost the first one, the one with all the pictures from the first year of my mission :/ I haven´t found it. But after I lost that, an elder let me have an extra that he had. So now I am using that one. I left it in the car of the Castillos and forgot to tell them so they sent it to Cartagena with a missionary that had lost her camera thinking it was hers. So eventually I got that back from Cartagena so now I have my second camera back. I have no luck with cameras. But I´m just glad that my favorite pictures got sent to you. And I´m going to try to get a lot back from comps and stuff. And that is really the beauty of Facebook, I´ll be able to get back most of my mission there too :) So I probably have one more transfer left here in the office and then I´ll probably have one more area. That will be crazy. Time is flying by.
So a thought for this week. This last week we had a zone conference and the topic that president chose to talk on was obedience. One of the main purposed of the talk was to have us reflect on why it is that we obey. I have thought about that a lot. Obviously there are hundreds of reasons that we obey, good and bad. To list a few, there is fear, a feeling of duty, a desire for blessings, a knowledge of consequences (kinda like fear), a desire for acceptance or respect, and love. Fear is probably at the far end of the negative spectrum and love at the positive, but where do we fall. For me it kind of depends on the day. At times I obey because I´m supposed to, because I´m a missionary. At other times I obey because I know what will happen if I don´t and I don´t want that to happen, and at times I truly do obey because I love the Lord and want to make him happy. So how do we get to the point that we are always obeying for the right reason? How can we come to love the Lord so much that we always want to do his will? That´s a hard question. The primary answers are the base. Read the scriptures, pray, go to church, be kind to others, and things like that. Those are the fundamental things, but what else can we do? I think that obedience brings more obedience. When we do what we are supposed to we realize, wow, I feel good. And then we do it again and again. So just test it out. What else? (ps I haven´t really thought about this before just writing it so if it is dumb, it is not well thought out dumbness :) ) I feel like our relationships with God depend on how we see two people; ourselves and God. So how to we improve on that? Well we get to see God in a better light as we do the primary things. And how do we see ourselves in a better light? That one´s hard. I am my own worst judge. I know and see all my faults, to me they are public and open. So how can I see myself the way I need to? I have to look at myself with different eyes. With heaven´s eyes (just like the song says). That doesn´t just happen in one day, it takes time. It takes patience and above all it takes a lot of love. We just have to remember our potential and who we are. I mean we are children of the Almighty God. We have a whole world on inheritance from him to come, figure out who we are, deal with what we´re not, and find our way back to him. We need to stop spending so much time putting ourselves down and thinking that we aren´t enough. We ARE enough. We have always been enough. The question is if we are going to let ourselves believe that. And if we are going to live in a way that proves that. A king does not live like a thief or beggar and nor should we. Obviously I´m not talking about physical goods like a King, but we have been given so many spiritual goods and we should not waste them scrounging in the dirt for the pleasures and desires of the world. We are more than that. We are. We always have been. We need to stop saying, well I should be doing this, or I should be doing that, or I should be like this or I should be like that. As Elder Castillo would say, stop should-ing in yourself (say it out loud, I guarantee Logan will giggle). Don´t sit around say I should all day. Either get up and fix it, or realize that it isn´t as important as you are making it. Those are the only two options. I hope you all have a fantastic week and that you go out and do some amazing things (really, in my book you already are!)
Love you,
Elder Charlie Flint