I done did it. I done lived for 20 years. That is way more than I was planning on. I hit 20 and then realized.. I need to start figuring what to do for the rest of my life. I mean how long am I supposed to hang around on this earth for? People live for what.. 40, 50 years? Modern medicine and sanitation standards have increased life expectancy to 76?! The word of wisdom keeps you around another 3 years?! The more I live the gospel, the more I have to keep figuring what to do to keep myself busy.
Luckily for me! 10 hours of General Conference with the help of the Holy Ghost saying, "yup you need to work on that," "yup you could do that better," created a good list of things that i'll need many years to make a dent in. The question was raised to myself, how am i preparing to receive the last saving ordinance - a temple marriage? As I worked to set a few specific goals that would help me allow all of the blessings of my patriarchal blessing be fulfilled, I felt prompted to make a few reasonable changes in the way I was focusing efforts on developing christlike attributes, studying the scriptures, magnifying my priesthood calling and so on. I was happy to see that a few actions could bring big results in several different categories of my life.
On October the 2nd, we had a normal day. We woke up and worked at. I at some cereal. We studied for an hour. studied together another 2 hours, studied Spanish for an hour, made some chicken Alfredo, finished half of our weekly planning session and then took off to help Sister Sebastian put some wooden siding on her house. After an hour and a half we taught a lesson to a man named chico, then our dinner appointment fell through so I took the cake mom mailed me to the Haight's house and they were nice enough to let me blow out some candles they had. We then taught the Acosta family about prophets and prepped them for conference, and we had a quick pump up visit with James Richard. A few other visits fell through during the day but we stayed really busy. As far as missionary work goes, i'd do it again.
Brother Richard stopped smoking! Boom!! Well, almost, he hasn't smoked in 5 days. He has had nicotine in him since he was 4, so we're waiting for him to complete the 7 day program before we can say he's got most of it out of his system, but so far he said, "If I knew quitting was going to be this easy, I would have quit 20 years ago!" That is the result of many prayers from many people and the power of God. Last week he was getting anxious if he didn't smoke for an hour or two. He has been really excited, more than anything I think, to email his son on a mission and to tell him he finally quit! The part that got him through the first few hard days was this contract we made him sign as a part of the program saying in conclusion that he was making a promise to quit to himself, his family, and to God. He saw that he was promising God to quit and his eyes got big, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes and then exhaled really long and slow. He then bent over and signed the paper and from that moment he just said, "I can't smoke, I promised God." I think he had a good experience at priesthood session and Sunday Morning session too.
Brother Acosta said he watched an hour of Sunday morning session on his computer at home. He won't read the Book of Mormon very consistently, but he has replaced coffee in his diet with smoothies. So, little by little i guess.
Our leaders are called of God. I love our living prophet Thomas S. Monson and sustain him.
I love you!
Stay Salty!
Elder Tyler Meidell
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