My Happy, Happy, Happy Birthday!!!

" My brothers and sisters, the gospel of Jesus Christ transcends mortality.  Our work here is but a shadow of greater and unimaginable things to come.  The heavens opened to the Prophet Joseph Smith.  He saw the living God and His Son, Jesus the Christ.   In our day a Prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, walks the earth and provides direction for our time. As our Heavenly Father loves us, we also should love His children."

~Elder Joseph B Wirthlin~

My Birthday!!!!! It was great!!!!! Truly I can say in honesty, it was the best day I had lived yet!  It exceeded all my grandest expectations.  Also, thank you so much for those of you who sent me kind emails and words of love and encouragement! I love you!  That meant a lot!  I read every email I get, and these ones meant SO much to me.  
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart!  

This is brother Cava!  He and I share a birthday, so he had us over for dinner.  I ate more food than I probably ever have in my life, and topped all the Thanksgivings I've ever had.  I then immediately went from eating all that food, to doing one handed pushups and singing and playing guitar and laughing and sharing the gospel and watching Heavenly Father use me to share a message with that family, that even surprised and touched and amazed me.

For my 19th birthday, I had just two desires: 

1) to give this day all the way to Heavenly Father, and 2) to use it only to bless others in meaningful ways, each hour of the day.

Let me tell you, THAT IS THE RECIPE FOR SUPER RIDICULOUS HAPPINESS!! It made that day the happiest day of my life yet! 

Christ shows and teaches me how to focus every degree of my life and being, outward and upward, in unselfish service to others.  I have found that when I treat others  as if they are Christ--and serve and love and honor and respect them as if they are Christ, then our unity and friendship is perfect! Perfectly one! Perfectly joyful and full of love and too much smiles and laughter!  Heavenly Father is able to unrestrainedly pour out almost more investigators and progress in the work than we can handle!  What great keys He is constantly teaching me!  I write everything down, that He tells me throughout every day, and then I immediately go to work enthusiastically to live and become whatever principle He had me write down!

 Heavenly Father really can do His work when we give ourselves all the way to Him--not just partly to Him.

As I shared last week, this is something Elder Gunderson taught me, that I've lived every day of my mission, and every minute of my every day:

"If you want to baptize a few people, talk to a few people

If you want to baptize a lot of people, talk to a lot of people

If you want to baptize everyone you can, then talk to everyone you can."

I love it!  I love love love living all the way out of my comfort zone!  I don't want a single day in the Mission to be at ALL in my comfort zone! this is where I thrive and skyrocket in eternal growth!