Idols of Life

Brother Zhu Zhen Ming passed his baptismal interview!! Ya! We are very excited for him. He is sort of like a small child. He is just simple and peaceable. I love him a lot, and I am grateful to know him. He is pretty great! I will send some pictures next week!

I don't know if you have noticed the brother with the round classes in a lot of my pictures recently, but his name is Joel, and he just left for college. I was really sad about it, he is one of my best friends on this island. So that was a hard part of the week but I am getting used to goodbyes finally after saying so many.

Also this last week I was able to go back to Daxi and visit my very first area. I didn't see many people I recognized, but we visited a few. It was kind of nostalgic and also a little sad. That place was really hard for me. It brought back a lot of those memories. I was grateful to see it again but also grateful I didn't have to stay haha.

Some scriptures we found and have been sharing this week are Mosiah 13:12-14 and Mosiah 2:22-23. 

"And now, ye remember that I said unto you: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of things which are in heaven above, or which are in the earth beneath, or which are in the water under the earth. And again: Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate me; 

And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and 

keep my commandments."

    "And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you. And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him."

Our message was that sometimes we allow other things to become our idols in life. Whether it is an actual statue, our work or some other worldly thing, if we do not always put God first we are not keeping his commandments. 

It is this way with everything. It sounds harsh without understanding, but God must even come before the family. Without God what is the family? Like Job, we need to first rely on Him, keep His commandments and then we take action and that is how we can have a happy family. Our motive of course can be family. 

I am now seeing how true it is to me. 

The things I want, whatever it may be, cannot be before God. This work is God's, and I know he will do it for me if I will be obedient and work my hardest. I LOVE IT!

Love,

Elder Henry David Christensen