The world cup is taking over my life. I kid you not, half of the Spanish Branch showed up to church repping their Mexico jerseys. Mexico played the Netherlands right in the middle of church. Dare I say no one listened. They were getting updates and live footage from their phones the whole time. Mexico lost. Serves 'em right! I told them not to watch during church, haha! It was apparently a freak last 10 minute win with 2 goals by Netherlands in overtime. Why do I know that having not watched the game? It has come up in every conversation since. Mexico got drunk and sad for a day; and now we can all move on. If I was not a missionary and in the same situation, I can't say for certain that I wouldn't have pulled my phone out a few times either, haha.This week, we taught 27 lessons! So that was really great! Of the 14 new investigators we still had only Slim come to church. He passed his baptismal interview last night and is ready to be baptized next Saturday. We're extra jealous of him this week because he's going camping with the young men tonight. I want to go camping. I don't want to go camping as much as I want to be a missionary, but I like camping.
In other news, John and Hermalda decided to skip reading the Book of Mormon all the way through and jumped from 2 Nephi into the Doctrine and Covenants. Hermalda never lets John read, I think she's made it into Doctrine and Covenants 41 in 2 weeks. She's tearing through her reading and Juan is asking for another jumbo book that has letters big enough for him to read. We'll do our best! Their testimonies are growing very quickly, and it has a lot to do with their desire to share their testimonies with their family members. Everyone looked very sharp in their new white button up shirts yesterday too. I hope they keep it going!
In other news, we watched 2 dogs die in the streets this week. Well one was from the street, and the other was an investigator's that happened to be on the street. No cars involved, they simply collapsed and died. Heat stroke strikes again. I imagine the stray was really dehydrated, and the investigator's dog was a Huskie. Obviously, a dog designed to thrive in freezing temperatures will not do well at 110 degrees. It was a very pretty dog, though.
Finally, the Spanish branch got a new branch president called! Man! Nine weeks with the last president missing in action, no ward mission leader, and absent teachers I can't wait for brother Arana to kick everyone's butt into gear. I think we'll see a lot of progress come from this.
I studied blood in the scriptures for a few days this week. In Leviticus 17 it describes the process to do a sin offering, and it struck me that the blood of the living body was considered anciently and throughout all biblical time as the life of the creature. As the blood of animals was sprinkled on altars it of course was the sacrifice of life necessary to pay the price for sin and foreshadowed the ultimate and infinite sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 9 teaches us that almost all of the law is justified by blood. The description in, I want to say Luke 22, that describes the blood that was shed from the body of Jesus Christ as he voluntarily suffered the pains necessary to satisfy the demands of justice required by the laws of God brings even more significance to the shedding of his blood. The shedding of his blood was necessary to satisfy the law.
As an extension of this thought, this brings us into a more clear view of who we are. Yes we are sons and daughters of God, yes we have the eternal potential of everlasting increase, but we are also fallen men, and fallen men cannot die and satisfy the demands of justice through the shedding of their own blood because it is already our nature to die. Because every accountable one of us is fallen and will commit an error we have separated ourselves from God. There must be a means by which we can overcome our fallen state and receive reconciliation with God or the plan of God would be entirely frustrated.
Jesus Christ requires that we recognize our imperfections and our fallen state and come to him in humility (Ether 12). Then by relying on his strength and meeting the requirements of repentance he will grant us by his grace the needed reconciliation. We still sacrifice life for sins like in Ancient times. However in our day Christ asks us to sacrifice our life, all that we are, openly and freely in the service and worship of our God who is mighty to save.
I love you! I miss you!
Stay Salty!
Elder Tyler Meidell
No comments:
Post a Comment