October 11, 2016

We get lots of crap for believing we can become like God one day. People say that we are diminishing God and thinking too highly of ourselves. But when you think about it, it makes sense...

Firstly, we all should know that God is our Heavenly Father. I saw a quote in the Mormon Message, "Earthly Father, Heavenly Father" (I recommend you watch it, it's a good one) that says, "of all the titles of respect and honor and admiration that are given to deity, He has asked us to address him as Father." Like any father who loves his children, he wants us to progress. I know of no loving father who doesn't want his children to progress to become like them. 

Psalms 82:6

6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.

People get offended because it says in the Bible pretty much that he is supreme and no one can be at his level. It's true, we don't say we will be at his level, he's supreme. His plan is one of progression. Just like Him, we will always be progressing, but he will always be ahead. It's like a race, eventually the guy in 8th place will be where 1st place was, but 1st place will be even further by the time that happens, making him still ahead. Heavenly Father is in that first place position and we are all working to go further...that is unless we "drop out." But what I'm trying to say is even though we will become Gods someday if we continue to follow in his footsteps, we will always look up to him.

Deuteronomy 10:17 (in the Bible of which those whom get offended believe in) it says:

17 For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward.

It says he's the God of Gods, clearly implying that there's more Gods and Lords. It also makes it clear that even though there are more, He will still be above all. 

And 1st Corinthians 8:5

5 For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,)

There's a reason we are on this earth. It makes no sense that God would send us down to Earth just to come back up exactly how we were before but with bodies, he's God, it would be easy for him to just put us in bodies. And he didn't send us down solely to worship him, be nice and come back like a lot of people believe. We were already with him, we already worshipped him. That makes no sense. He loves us and he wants us to progress, we came here to not only get a body, but to get tested, experience right from wrong, prove that even with agency we will make the right choices and follow him, and learn; all so we can become greater and more like Him. I could share a couple scriptures but it gets lengthy and a tad deep. But trust me they're out there.

I apologize, I didn't use too much Book of Mormon because I was studying to show people that the Bible supports the Book of Mormon in that aspect. Plus I'll find myself getting too deep if I were to start sharing those scriptures too. But it's super cool and I'm quite grateful for the knowledge we can have through revelation given to us through the prophets and the additional support from the other books to clarify this plan that Heavenly Father has in store for us.  

Monday:

Not much. The wifi at the church went out so we had to bounce around places with wifi and send emails there. That's it.

Tuesday:

We went on exchange again and I led. I was with someone younger in the mission than me. I'm old! It was pretty cool because the elder I was with gave a blessing to someone we did service for. I gave the same person a blessing a few weeks ago. The elder that was with me said something specific that I said in my blessing to him too, some parts word for word. So that was pretty cool.

Wednesday:

Today was pretty good, we visited a less active member who we've never seen and she had just gotten back from the gym. We were able to sit down and really get to know her. Then we gave a short lesson pertaining to her needs and showed her a video. She wrote the video down, felt the spirit and said she needs to start coming to church and whatnot again if she's to make it through her trials. It was exactly what she needed to hear, it was quite a bold lesson too. We are going to continue meeting with her and doing service. We met with another less active later who was older and he said something cool. When they opened up the Indian territories for missionaries, they said they've heard those stories before as they've been passed down from generation to generation (for those who don't know the history of the Book of Mormon, Natives are Lamanites whom Jesus visited). They even said there were stories about a white man coming down with white hair that had been passed down. It's also written on caves in ancient American territories of the brown folk worshipping a white man coming from heaven, which should make no sense, if they made someone up to worship he would've been brown. So that's some cool evidence about the Book of Mormon. We also had another good lesson. It was a pretty good day.

Thursday: 

Today kinda sucked. But it got better after I went home for dinner and slept the whole time. 

Friday:

It was pretty slow. Remember I said Georgia drivers are awful? Nothing changes in the Fall. In the past two days we were really close to being hit three times and saw two people get rear ended on separate occasions. And man, a mission gets you tired, I fell asleep all over the place today, I fell asleep while praying for almost an hour. We also got a cat to trust us and come in our apartment! But we had to kick it out :/ Mission rules.

Saturday:

Fetch are you kidding me? This is the second hurricane to miss us. One swerved to the west, this one swerved to the right today. I swear I'm storm repellant. It's quite irritating. On a good note we went tracting and someone came up to us and said they wanted to meet. He was drunk and spoke mostly Spanish so we'll have to give him to other elders, but it was cool. We also had someone let us in right away and had a good lesson with them. That means a successful day of tracting.

Sunday:

We had a super bomb lesson and dinner with someone named Lisette at a recent convert's home. Man it was great. She's getting awesome fellowship and actually reads the Book of Mormon everyday! I actually think she will get baptized. This is the furthest I've gone with anyone. 

Monday:

Well the Zone Leaders got a call from the assistants pretty much telling me to be ready for this next transfer in a week. They said it is going to be a test. So we will see if it's still going to follow through. And p day got messed up so that's why I didn't email on Monday.