Sunday, June 9, 2013

Learned a lesson about putting off the "natural man"

May 20

Well this week was pretty fun, and also a little difficult. We had a lot of rain for a couple of days, it got so bad one day that we returned home for a bit and studied and dried off waiting for it to calm down. After that it was a lot better, we talked to people and set a baptismal date for Sunday.

The problem with the baptism was she didn't show up.

Maria, I believe I talked about her a few weeks ago, but she stopped us in the street to tell us to help her son and her with the gospel. One of her sons was baptized previously, and so we came and taught her. Everything was going right, except she didn't think that she needed to be baptized again, or that she could be baptized again. Other than that she was all ready to get baptized and to make the covenants with God.

So Sunday, we had a member pass to try and look for her - she wasn't there. So we passed by later on before sacrament, about 3 times. Each time wasn't there. So the baptism at 12p.m. was canceled and good thing, ‘cause earlier that day we tried turning on the heater which hadn't been turned on in years and the font turned really dirty. That was problem number one with, the other was it took an hour to try and figure it out and turn it on. So it was a good thing it canceled in a way. We passed almost every hour after trying to get in touch with her and have the baptism that night. Ended up being a no go because we finally got in touch with her at 7p.m. that night, and she wanted to wait a bit longer.

We'll wait untill Tuesday, and hope and pray that nothing goes wrong.

There really wasn't a ton this week, we talked to a few new families, did some searching for news. Oh yeah, we went to an English class and talked with the students there, and that was really fun. the teachers were both really cool and were glad we came to talk to them, and the first the one that initially came in contact with us was super cool and made us cookies!!!! Both regular and chocolate chocolate chip (2x times the chocolate :P) and it has been so long since I’ve had chocolate chip cookies! (Hey Mom can you send me you're favorite recopies for that and just in general, I need more things to make at night besides pasta and rice :P). The second class we passed was smaller, but still cool. (Though it sounds like all the students here like to party, get drunk, and hang out with friends. They need more hobbies). They also talked about passing the church on Sunday but they never showed. Sad day.

The other really funny story: we passed a lady the other day who came out of the house when we knocked and she started talking to us (it doesn't help me when people talk fast to me). At first she seemed really crazy, and my companion told me to make it simple and fast, but she ended up being really cool, gave us a ton of references telling us to pass and teach the whole world another day. And she brought us coffee, we had to turn it down, I feel bad when people do stuff for us like that and we have to say no, though also glad that this wasn't the first time I had to drink coffee :P

One thing I learned this week is that people get mad at little things a lot. I am starting to notice that people get frustrated easy at little things and it hasn't really helped me. for example, the other day I was making rice, and was just about done, and one of the members of our household gave a little suggestion to do something that I could have done 10 minutes before, but didn't make a difference at that point, and on top of that it didn't end up making much of a difference in the end anyway. The thing was he gave me the advice expecting me to do it, and he blew up when I didn't.

(Oh by the way, I have learned that people look really ridiculous when they get angry and yell. That was something that Elder Chollett taught me.) From that I have tried really hard to never yell back at people. and to couple that I read the next day in mosiah 3:19

19: For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

So what I learned from this is that with the natural man, the first reaction is the one that destroys. In this instance, both he and I could have avoided this situation and little argument by putting off the natural man, by not giving into the first reaction.

Also, we also need to give up our own pride sometimes when we see that someone will blow up like this, to do our part to help avoid the situation. It’s kind of sad how it happens, but if we can all learn to put off the natural man, we can also get along better with each other and have the peace that our Heavenly Father promises us.

Well I'm out of time, got to go, miss you all, and write me soon. I might have to resort to some other method of sending letters than through scanning them into emails the next few weeks till I can figure out what’s wrong with my camera, but I will still send through snail mail. See you all in a year and a half!

Elder Sean Anderson

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