November 7, 2016

Many of us take baptism for granted, we don't truly know the importance of it. Sometimes we focus too much on the fact that we're washed clean from our sins. And that's great! But we're going to sin again, and yes there's repentance, but that's not the sole reason for baptism, it's kinda like a side bonus.

One of the most important reasons for baptism is being able to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost will comfort you, warn you, and bring to your attention when you're about to sin. I'll touch more on why that's important later.

Something a lot of us overlook or push aside is how vital baptism is. We can't enter into the kingdom of God without it. This is why we do baptisms in proxy for those in the spirit world who passed on without being baptized. Everyone gets equal opportunity.

The most important thing I think is the covenant made at baptism. We overthink it way too much. Could you tell me right now what covenants you made at baptism? Think about it for a sec...Even I overthought it until just this last week. It's so simple!

Read Alma 7:15-16

15 ...and show unto your God that ye are willing to repent of your sins and enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him this day by going into the waters of baptism.

16 And whosoever doeth this, and keepeth the commandments of God from thenceforth, the same will remember that I say unto him, yea, he will remember that I have said unto him, he shall have eternal life...

Boom, there it is! It's to keep the Commandments, that's it! All of them, and not just the classic ten, but the word of wisdom, law of chastity, tithing, pray, etc... And of course a covenant is a two-way promise. His end of the deal is that you will have eternal life. That's a bargain.

It's funny how much we overthink things. It was said that the gospel is simple enough so that even a child could understand it. Yes, there's more depth than we can ever imagine, I've learned that since I've been out here. It applies to everything. But that's not what's important. The important thing is the foundation, then we can worry about the rest later, then we can overthink things. We gain that foundation by keeping the covenants that we made in the first place. You know what you need to do, so do it, and the rest will come. We all have discernment and the light of Christ, we deep down know what is and isn't true. As long as we live in accordance to the gospel and do the simple things then it's been promised that you willnever do something bad without first getting that prompting from the Holy Ghost. It's just a matter of whether or not we ignore it, and we ignore it all too much, myself included, I'm 100% guilty of it. And the more we ignore it, the less we will have the promptings of the Holy Ghost which includes warning us of danger, helping us in difficult situations or when seeking for an answer. He's not going to help us out if we are always ignoring him. If you gave someone advice and all they did was ignore it, are you going to keep giving them advice or let them try to figure it out on their own?

I went a little off topic. But you made a covenant to Heavenly Father at baptism that you'd keep his Commandments, you were given the gift of the Holy Ghost and one of those reasons was to help you keep that covenant with him. He wants you to return with him, therefore we were given the spirit to be with us always to help us keep that covenant by letting you know when it's about to be broken. So use it. Obviously, we being imperfect beings will and have broken that covenant many times. Thank heavens for the Atonement. But if we continue to break it then we truly have no remorse, meaning the Atonement won't apply. 

To wrap all this up in a bite-sized package, at baptism you made a covenant with God to keep the Commandments and He promised eternal life. To help you achieve that he gave you the Holy Ghost. Use that important gift to come closer to him and achieve that ultimate goal. 

Monday:

Halloween. Everyone's partying and I'm planning the week. Bright side, I drove for the first time today! It's been a while.

Tuesday:

Wednesday

Friday:

Sorry I've had a pretty bland past couple days. Normal stuff. But today we had a good three people not want to talk to us or accept anything from us because they believe Jesus is black. Cuz that's important to our salvation. He was born in Bethlehem! He's a Middle Eastern, that's a tan white. Goodness. We get that from time to time but especially today for some reason.

Saturday:

Knocking doors as usual. So far this week we've gotten 19 potential investigators. We also had someone a couple months ago kinda rebuke us for doing missionary work because it's "not of God" to have us leave home and have minimal contact (even though that's exactly what Jesus asked his apostles to do and even rebuked one of them when they asked to go say bye). Well anyways, we left her with a card and headed our ways. She called us this week and wanted to set something up. What the crap??? That doesn't happen too often at all. Like ever. So work hard and you'll be blessed in many ways. This week has been extraordinarily odd because people have been much nicer and accepting of us.

Sunday:

I had two dinners. And I ate ribs for the first time, and yes I ate with my hands, and yes I ate off the bone. I eat like a man now. (1 Corinthians 13:11)

11 When I was a child, I [ate] as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

I'm a man now.

I took almost no pictures, but I saw a park and Elder May dared me to do a flip off the park. Phhh. I'm not gonna let that down, so I said, "film me." And I still have it.