Shark Attack! Jesus Christ needs YOU

I LOVE YOU

Powerful words.  Use them from your heart, prove them from your actions.  That's greatest commandment God requires of you and me.  Christ needs us to reach out, for that's the only way we can live a happy life at it's deepest level.  Today is the only chance we have to prove we love Heavenly Father, by giving up all of our whole self, to gain a better self: His version of us!

Grander than we could imagine.

This is our day to love and lift--thus be filled with the love and lift to impact our world and EVERYONE around us for eternal bright and brilliant good! 

Are you up for it?

Hope this can give you a boost and motivation for your week.  The Lord needs us.  We have a wonderful life to seize!  I send my love and thanks for all you do and the advice you sent me last week!  I am humbled by the miracles the Lord works as we love Him and His children and press past every pain, trial, challenge, weakness and barrier.  

There are people out there to love, serve, lift, encourage, and this is the day to do it!

This is Dante.  He was Baptized the other day.  He is an amazing young man.  Take a step up and out--follow Christ.  Promise Him your whole self and He'll multiply all you are and bring you above the sorrows of this world and transform you on exchange of only on thing: a willing heart.

I am learning to be more willing and more perfectly trusting.  And oh is it a joy! I'm inadequate, but Christ doesn't need me to be adequate--He just needs me willing.  He'll magnify us if we are simply willing and don't stop stepping forward with our love and trust fully STUCK on Him.  

I certainly haven't arrived; but thanks to Him and all of your help and advice, I am basking in the light of the daily journey.  I know your Savior loves me.  He commands me to promise you that He does.  That is my commission; to reconnect people to that love. 

Here's the report of this week's lessons Christ taught me this week in Tropical Fiji Suva:

Bits of inspiration and thoughts this week:

This is the simplest formula I know for unhappiness: "A lack of trust in God brings sadness,"(President Henry B. Eyring) and trust in Him will always pull us up to the highest levels of happiness He is ever ready to bring us to. 

This week, our District of Missionaries in this area came together and decided to try something: 

S.H.A.R.K.

subtle, humble, acts of random kindness

And we have spent the whole week sharking everyone.  We assigned ourselves secretly to another missionary, to serve them in anonymous ways non-stop all we could.  Try it!  Be a shark this week! You'll find your spirit has a full belly and you've got a lot more power and joy in life by being a shark. It changed the way I lived my week!  Try it out and it will do the same thing for you. 

I have been studying and watching and learning about the living Prophet whom God has called in our day, President Thomas S. Monson, and the more I watch and study him and the other living Apostles Heavenly Father has directly chosen in our day, the more I have an overwhelming confirming witness from Heavenly Father that these men are true prophets chosen to lead the world in these final days.  In my opinion, they are the most in to tune people in the world with Christ and the Holy Spirit.  They are the kind of selfless and pure I have decided I will choose to devote my life to become.  They are my heroes.  I have a personal witness that Jesus Christ lives and that it really is He who has called these inspired and humble men. 

Beyond just knowing of the instances where they have performed miracles or done impossible things and changed the world, I just simple know from the power of the Holy Ghost that they are true prophets and Jesus Christ is at the head of this church. 

In our quest to be more like the Savior, copying these men and following closely the patterns we see them teaching us by the way they live their lives and the truths they speak, this way we will find ourselves surprised to day by day be even as Jesus Christ---His image and works shining brightly in who we are and how we love and serve and lift the world around us.  Let the Prophets of God become your new hero.  Jesus Christ is teaching me so much; as I follow His servants I find myself becoming like Him like I always wished . 

Random picture I found :) 

Choose whether you want to build yourself a tent to reside in for eternity, or a house, or a castle.  It's up to us.  What we choose and give, we'll receive. 

I also learned that you can ask Heavenly Father directly, "Lord, please teach me how Thou dost communicate with me", and He will then be able to show you if you listen and pay attention.  Find out the way He speaks to you, and then seal yourself to that line of communication and it will transform you to who you wish to become.  

I have also learned that covenants are how we gain a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  AS we live the promises we made at Baptism and in the Temple to lift and serve and love all around us and follow in the footsteps of our perfect Savior, that is the way we come to know Him even as if He were personally with us moment by moment.  That is the quest of this lifetime: to find the covenant path in this gospel and then seal yourself to it fully with your whole heart daily. 

Is your light a reflection of the Savior's light?  

Find this light and plant it in you, and you'll watch all the dark world around you transform to bright.  

We are saved as we save others, we come to know Christ by bringing others to Him, we become more than we could dream we can become, only once we lose ourselves to serving our Heavenly Father and one another and shifting focus completely off self. 

Missionaries work 112 hours per week, every week for 2 years and receive no pay or break or compensation from this world.  Why?  Love is the Motive, Christ is the Reason.  That is what fuels us.

The other night, in my personal prayers, I asked Heavenly Father if He was listening to me.  I felt a blockage.  He then responded, "Yes.  Are you?"  This simple soul-to-soul instance taught me a great truth.  In our personal relationship with Him, we must learn this great truth:  When you listen to Him, you'll feel heard.  When we feel we can't see or hear Him for a moment, it is us who aren't looking fully at Him and us that aren't listening fully to Him.  Know Him, and you'll feel known.  Serve Him and you'll have every need and yearning met.  Give yourself, you'll find yourself.  This is the secret formula.  Give, receive all you need! "Allow yourself to feel loved by Him, because if you don't feel loved by Him, it is you who isn't allowing yourself to embrace and believe His limitless love.  You don't have to qualify for His love.. you have to let it in and embrace it and then THAT transforms you in the path of light to BEing a qualified and healed son or daughter in His arms, ready to be all you're destined for!   This is the simple thing He is always and has always been trying to teach us: to live for something bigger than ourselves--serve the family we belong to, humanity/divinity... the family of God.  Faith to give, gives us the blessing of receiving all of the fullness life and eternity have to offer!  He wants us to learn this .  

Biggest principle is, let yourself believe in His love for you.  That that move you forward on the path of light, past all your stumbling, weaknesses, inadequacies, sins, doubts, pains, wounds and fears.  Accept what He is trying daily to give you.  

Simple.

Try it. 

Persist at it ! 

Continuous effort will realize you to all you aspire.  Christ never gave up.  That's one way you and I can be like Him.  

If we do one thing, we're promised success... that one things is NOT GIVE UP.  Keep stepping forward ! Always. Toward Him. 

The other night, Elder Luatua and I were talking about Heavenly Father's expectations and our possibilities in this life.  We talked deeply about, "When you are 50, what kind of life do you picture for yourself?  All the details.  What do you hope you have accomplished.  When it comes down to it, what will have mattered by then MOST?"

These were questions our mission discussed in a Zone Conference recently:

·         What are the first words that come to your mind when you think of God?

·         Do you think heaven would be heaven without our family?

·         Do you know that God knows you by name?

·         Have you ever wondered what God is doing to help resolve the problems in the world?

·         Have you ever considered what you can do to strengthen your family?

·         What would it mean to you to have a prophet of God on the earth?

·         Have you ever felt like life is pointless?

·         What do you want as an end result of this life?

This conversation my companion and I had led me to understand what I want to be when I grow up.  We came up with 11 different paths I now understand I desire to choose.  Career paths become clear when we go to the Lord's best laboratory for life: a 2 year Mission.  The revelation does come if we seek it and live for Him as our full center and focus to serve others.  

The other day, my companion and I performed a Samoan "Sasa" dance for a big ward talent show.  It is a joy to embrace other cultures and be outside of one's comfort zone.  This is the best place.  In our comfort zone, we shrink.  When we are out, we love life and life grows and improves us and we impact the world as agents of Christ to do meaningful, loving acts constantly for others.

The other day, we were walking along, and a guy called out to us, "Elders, I have been waiting for you.  Come bless me, I am very sick."  We were very surprised and didn't know who this man was, but God did.  We blessed him and then his wife came out and said she had just been talking to their neighbor and she wants to be Baptized and learn about this church.  We taught her neighbor and then that led us to another person she had for us to teach!  The Lord can use us as we simple are following Him where He wants us to be and doing what we should, letting Him know we're ready to act on His errands.  

Sooo many people are coming to church and preparing to be baptized!  It isn't because of us.  It is because the Lord uses anyone who will just be willing and walk with Him with all their heart.

Ate Mexican food in Fiji!! Haven't used my Spanish in ages!  I love you Mommy and Daddy and family.  I love all of you.  Be disciples of Christ.  In every way, every day, every day, every day! :)