James Richard is a non-smoker! Boom. There were a few close calls. He decided to buy a house this week, and a bunch of work equipment was damaged in some accident (of course it was) so he was getting really anxious with all of the financial struggles with his bank and from getting behind with work. He says though, "I've made a promise to God to not smoke another cigarette, i'll sooner cut my left hand off than break that promise." So it hasn't been easy, but he says he's proud of himself. He hasn't stopped drinking coffee all the way, down from 3 pots to 1 cup a day so that'll be the objective tomorrow and then baptism on the 25th.
He's realizing he has kind of a temper problem without cigarettes, haha. He said he's got some serious road rage and he got mad at the news a few nights ago. Whatever Ebola related decision made him yell, "you bunch of idiots!" and storm out of the house to go do some work in his garage. Now he's really having to put the atonement into work in his life to put off the natural man so he can be more like the gentleman he wants to be. I'd never looked at cigarettes, or any drug for that manner, in that way before. They depress your nature, and simultaneously kill you. You don't realize you need Christ's help because you've drugged yourself into becoming a false identity. It'll be better, when the same spirit which has power to posses your body in it's mortal frame, will take it back up in the resurrection, and your true nature has been changed when drugs will no longer be able to supplement your personality.
Monique helped us teach the Acosta family. She did a great job. She actually knew their oldest daughter from high school. He got a promotion at work, and so he worked through the weekend and they didn't make it out to church. We tried to explain, yes God has answered your prayers to be able to provide well for your family. Yes, this is a test to see if you'll obey the commandments when you no longer feel wholly reliant on the Lord to provide for you, because whether you feel like it are or not, you are wholly dependent on him for your sustenance. We all are.
All of the spanish speakers in the mission had a meeting on Tuesday. We talked about making spanish study plans. It was a big help to me, I was getting disoriented with my study hour. I had been translating conference talks or ensigns into spanish by hand, and would then study my mistakes to learn a new phrase or grammer principle; but I didn't have a goal or a purpose to it, so my retention and application of those principles was poor. I have.. a little bit more direction now, and some new ideas of ways I can study to mix things up a little bit. To give guidance to missionary's studies they set up a a 3 tier system with requirements to pass each tier that will guide missionary's to learn and apply spanish so they're more successful in teaching situations. I passed the third tier this last transfer, There was a translating, common errors, and sentence correction test you needed to score an 85 on, a few pamphlets you had to translate, and a number of scriptures to memorize. I still feel like my understanding is really shallow. It's hard to really get into it in an english area. My heart goes out to the Spanish called Elders that still haven't served in a Spanish area.
Taking the invitation from conference to re-study joseph smith history I was impressed by the clarity of the explanation of what was being restored in the last dispensation through joseph smith. When Moroni appeared to him he clearly related from scripture the components of the priesthood keys, gathering of israel, the work of the dead, and on, that needed to be given to man in order for a fulness of Christ's Gospel to exist on the earth. Study the footnotes and see how God unfolded his great plan of the restoration from the very beginning!
I love you and I miss you!
Stay Salty!
Elder Tyler Meidell
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