Got to talk to my Mom!

May 13

I hope you are all doing well!!!

I know I am :)

This week we worked a lot with finding newbies and a certain young man named Mateus, the brother of Ronaldo. He was a very very muley kid, and to explain, he didn't want to get baptized, but then he did, then he didn't - switching back and forth. Barely didn't get baptized this week, but we got him in the water on Sunday, and so now we have had two baptisms two weeks in a row, which is really cool, I'm glad to have been a part of it. On top of that we also got to talk to our Moms!!!

So, my mom is fantastic, she is looking very beautiful (as always), and I would also like to say happy birthday to her, and between the stress of life, they are all doing well. It’s weird though, ‘cause I expected to feel differently after we talked, ‘cause I felt like I didn't have enough time to talk to my family, that it was really short, and that I need another 10 hours to feel satisfied. But it was kind of fun getting to talk to my family, despite Elder Gutemberg asking every 10 seconds what they said. Psh, can't I talk to my family in a language they understand? :P

Today, I'd just like to talk about the difficulties of life. I feel very often here that life is a lot harder than it should be, that there are things that just stress me out. For example, if someone yells at you for some reason or another, it just raises tension in the house, and you just want to hide. The only problem I have is there is nowhere to hide. I had one of those moments recently, where someone became frustrated with me for one reason or another, and I went out and found a place to just sit and talk with my Heavenly Father. In this moment, it started seeming a little bit easier, I could feel the presence of my Heavenly Father, and I sat and talked with him and opened up my thoughts to him, and it’s been a bit easier to feel love for others, and to have as my friend Steve says - charity.

I've been finding as of late that some of the hardest traits to develop are 1) charity, the pure love of Christ, and 2) humility. Whenever I feel frustrated with others, I sit down, and think why am I frustrated and I think of humility and the promises of happiness when we have humility. And as president Benson or president Uchtdorf remind us, pride is trouble, and they warn us of the traits of pride. If we can throw off our pride, we can be humble. The problem is when you are frustrated with someone else, the automatic response is pride. Thinking that you are right and they are wrong. This is the huge mistake. While it may be true, they won't see it that way, ‘cause they will be thinking the same thing.

Basically, what I'm trying to get at is if we can learn to have love for all man, we can start to develop this trait of humility. The best tool to get this when you are feeling frustrated is prayer. When we pray we are talking to our Heavenly Father. When we read the scriptures, we read the teachings and revelations of the master teacher, Jesus Christ. When we stop and do that, we can start overcoming the difficulties we have. We can start opening up channels that only come through love and humility - that will allow blessings. When we pray we show our Heavenly Father our faith in him that he will help us, and we allow him to lift us up again.

I've had some thoughts about this recently as well. The lord doesn't need strong men, he needs weak men, that way he can break them down easier to build them up. That’s what humility is, we get rid of the rickety foundation of pride to have our lives build upon the foundation of Christ. Also, to be a good winner you have to be a good loser first. I have noticed this playing chess lately (cause that’s what we do in the house) when someone is willing to play again even after many times of losing, they will improve, but if someone gets frustrated with losing, they won't progress cause they won't want to play.

Just a few of the thoughts I've had lately. Gotta go, I have more I have to do such as submitting this baptism :P

Love you all, write me soon!

Elder Sean Anderson