Blessings, and everything

Date: Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Hello Family!

This week has been really good. I think I forgot to mention last time that Elder Oaks came and spoke to us at our mission conference two Fridays ago. It was really good. The spirit was really strong and he shook everyones hand and that was such a blessing. It´s funny being out here in the field is different than being in the MTC preparing. :) When you´re in the world Satan tries really hard to distract you and to pull you down. But being in places where the Spirit is so strong, at church, or your house\apartment (hopefully), or with other people that have the spirit with them, that gives you strength to carry on. Hearing from Elder Oaks and his cousin President Oaks was so powerful and gave me a lot of strength. Focusing on the gospel does bring happiness. This world is very discouraging and depressing, so to have the gospel brings so much peace and happiness that the world cannot give. I am convinced of that more and more. There is also happiness in obedience. Actually happiness comes from obedience, the gospel brings us happiness only in so far that we obey the commandments that it teaches us. Well the Atonement brings us happiness because we are not perfect and cannot always keep all the commandments, so to have the Atonement where we can be forgiven brings happiness that only the Savior can give to us. Mosiah 2:41 is true true true and Alma 36:27, and a whole bunch of others. :) I am just grateful God has shown us the way to how we can be happy. MY companion and I were talking about it today. We have an investigator that struggles with the idea that if God loves all His children why would He let them perish, why will He destroy the wicked if they are His children and He loves them. And today in companion study we were trying to think how we could explain it to her. And it occured to me how closely related spiritual and physical laws are. I thought of this analogy. You hear of this wonderful place the most beautiful place you´ve ever seen and you really want to go. It´s a pretty intense hike though, so you have to be in really good physical shape to get there. There is only one guide who has seen it who can take you there. And he will take the last group up in a few months. So you kind of prepare, but not really and the time comes to go on this journey, this hike. But you are just plain not ready to go, because it is too intense for you. It´s not that the guide doesn´t want you there, he does, but you yourself are just not ready take on such a vigorous phyically exhausting journey so you can´t go. Well, this analogy is faulty, because the Lord does help us, we don´t have to do it alone. But I also think there are certain spiritual laws that work like that. We have to be prepared to live a high spiritual law. God has prepared a palace for us, Eternal life. But we have to exercise our spiritual strength in order to make the journey. It is worth it, and it does feel good. Just like when people are in really good physical shape they feel good. But we also have to do our part. Thankfully the Lord is there to help us. May be if we have faith that our guide can carry us my analogy wouldn´t be as faulty. :) Anyway, yeah, so that is what I have been thinking about. :) The mission life is good though. I really enjoy Germany. MY German is coming along. I am understanding more and more. My companion is amazing. She watches me struggle, and the other day I said, "well if it were just like math I think I could remember it better. Linguistics just confuses me." So what did she do? She came up with verb equations like this: passive(present perfect tense(verb))=present(sein)+past participle(verb)+worden. That may look confusing, but it totally helped me understand Passive Perfect Present tense with werden. Those that speak German will appreciate this equation or at least laugh. :) She has come up with many other equations with different verb rules that have also helped me understand so much better. I told her she should get a double masters in math and linguistics and write a book about all this and get rich and famous. She is so cool. I am so blessed to have her as my companion. She even has the scripture scouts CD´s. :) It´s really fun.
Well I better go. But I love you all family and I´m glad that Analee is officially Analee. :) That is so wonderful you went to the Draper Temple open house. I heard it is really pretty.
Love,
Sister Fitzgerald