Again, A Gain

परमेश्वर के काम बहुत अछा चले ! हमेशा ऊपर जात्ता है ! 

こぞきゅ、げんき ですか ？ わたし わはっぴ でさ。

We saved a life this week.  He would have likely died if we weren't undeniably led by Heavenly Father to him.  We were led by the Spirit to him and were able to give him a blessing and teach him about Jesus Christ and then take him to the hospital.  It was a miracle. 

We are teaching him. 

His name is Naresh. 

The Work and my Hindi move ahead at a beautiful pace.  This week has been one of growth and change and dedication and decision. 

I learned this week, that I am the only missionary in the world at the moment, who knows how to read and write in Sanscrit Hindi (this kind of writing: देखो, बहुत सुन्दर चीज, नहअ?) And I actually know more than most of the locals here!  It is very humbling.  At the same time, just as any missionary, I struggle and stumble over the language.  I know I am nothing without the Lord magnifying me.  I have been blessed to enjoy this beautiful culture, and now I am fully joined to it!  I only eat with my hands, even! 

I sit down to a meal and look at the spoon and fork and knife and don't have a clue what to do with them.  We Hindi people only eat with our hands.  

This week, I again lost a couple hundred or so pictures.  It was extremely mysterious and surprising.  I had no power to stop it and there wasn't any way to prevent it, and there's really no way I can explain how it happened.  My camera just deleted itself.  So, I am going to buy a new camera today. 

It is once again as if I have taken not a single picture in the entire duration of my mission to present. 

But, again, it is only a gain. ;) 

Once again I lost all pictures.  Again as if not one picture taken on the whole of my time in Fiji.  Tho it happened again, again it is only a gain.  The Lord is making of me someone who no matter what losses or sacrifices or trials I meet in all my life a head, none can negatively (only positively) affect me.  There are no true negative losses in this world except to those who stop holding tightly to the secure rod of their covenants with God.  Now no material or sentimental "loss" can negatively blow me down.  Father sent me on a mission not to make pictures or even great memories--He sent me to make ME a grand and everlastingly useful tool in His hands.  

All external means, things and elements bedsides His children, are just no more than Father's means to and end.  

And to what end is that? 

To being forged for eternity, in every characteristic like Father, and possessors of all He hath even a fullness of joy, a fullness of unbounded eternal potential and progress, and everlasting progressive, continuation of the exalted family unit.  Father is teaching me how to be connected to no thing but Him.  Through Christ and only those things which have no fading and no end.  

What He is making of me, an eternal being from Him, has no fading and no end.  I make a choice to shout for joy for having lost my pictures; for, weigh all the above truths and principles in the balance, and judge how all I gained makes no loss!  

It is not easy for a Father to teach a son such eternal useful and inadvertently expedient lessons as these, these whose benefits reach into the eternities, but Father finds a way.  

I am learning how to transcend all the trials of this world.  And how to have them all only have positive power over me.  These are the gifts of learning of and accessing the Atonement of Jesus Christ. 

The purpose of life is to learn to live happily. 

 And therefore, we must be thrown into unhappy circumstances, so we learn to transcend by choosing; and by using the Atonement's transcendent and real power in our minute to minute lives and daily minute decisions. 

We all have trials, and valleys and thorns and "unfair" sad things, and we all have burdens on our shoulders.  Sometimes we feel like we have no one to turn to or be understood by except for Jesus  Christ and Father loving, in prayer.  Life really refines and tries us, 

I admit this whole-heartedly.  Missions aren't easy.  

Whatever our current calling and station or position life currently has us standing in, it isn't easy. 

I want to extend my love and sympathy and understanding to all who may feel or have felt or will feel like no one is there for them, or like they are alone, or like they in the valley will never see the mountain tops again.  

Trials are the only way to learn the best lessons in life, the only chances we have to take steps forward and up, and only way to exercise our power to choose.  

I have learned how to have them only have a positive power over me.  Get to this point and your earth time will only be a time of excelling and positive power.

Trials and losses are where and when we have the only opportunity to choose to use them as tolls instead, to ascend. 


By the permission and commission of Heavenly Father, I testify the following as a promise that the Spirit is speaking through me to each of you:

You will get to the beautiful peaks of the grandest mountains again, if you keep looking more fixedly to Christ and don't stop walking upward and relying on Him in all things.  It is impossible to fail when we are falling upon Him as our comfort and our strength.  

You can't possibly fail if you don't fail to hold on to Him more tightly than ever.  The sun will shine again, and the more brighter. 

Anything in our lives that needs fixing, He can fix.  

The most powerful sentence in this whole existence, is this: You are His work and His glory.  He thinks about you, feels with you, walks with you, never abandons you, and one day you will see it all clearly and your sorrows will all be replaced with joys and eternal light.  

Enduring to the end is about choosing joy--in using our agency to hold to hope, lift up others thereby lifting ourselves, and holding to our covenants and the restored Gospel of Christ we have all sealed ourselves to. 

In the name of Jesus Christ I promise you He will strengthen you, if you desire to and then do this: strengthen His place in your life--give Him more room, attention, and time.  Strengthen His place in your life, and He will strengthen you and raise you and your loved ones up, up unto eternal life, and full healing and triumph. 

Be patient by choosing happiness no matter what your circumstances. 

The atonement is the key to everything.  Learn more of it. 

>>> His Plan <<<
 
Always be found as one who acts on any direction or prompting from the Holy Spirit. 

May we all know we are here for the grandest purpose imaginable, and this is the time to Choose and Know Christ. 

I love you all. 

In the name of Jesus Christ amen. 

Eternal Elder Howard, 
Fiji Lautoka Hindi