Obedience is always worth it

June 9, 2014

Hello Pamilya!

My week is nowhere near as interesting as Sister Moyle's last two weeks have been, a good thing I guess, but I guess that I have a knack for unintentionally scaring people? Something about "walking quietly" and my eye color?....My poor kabahay has been dealing with me just coming up to them to ask a question only for them to jump three feet in the air and exclaim "Sister Jones!" Yeah, need to work on that.

We have a baptism coming up this week! The guy who took his earring out, Angelito Jr., is getting baptized this Saturday! He is a bit shy, but he has a testimony and we are very excited for him to be baptized this weekend...we might even have two baptisms. Si Anjel was one of our investigators, but then he had to go to Cabanatuan for school...and was supposed to be baptized this weekend...we had sent his information the missionaries over there so they could continue teaching him there and have him baptized there if he continued to go to church and build his testimony. We went to see his family yesterday to teach them (since they're less active trying to become active) and his dad told us that he was transfering his papers for school back to here and is coming back today! So, if he's still been going to church and building his testimony, he can be baptized! Blessings!!!!!!!!

When we came into this life, even before, we have this wonderful gift called agency, or the ability to choose things for ourselves (this was evident when we read that Lucifer and a third of the hosts of heaven "fell" after he was denied the honor of becoming the savior we needed here on earth). We can choose what we want to do in this life, something as small as what you'll eat for breakfast this morning to something as big as what you want to do with your life. No matter what we do or choose, there is always some sort of reaction that will either be to our advantage or disadvantage that we are responsible for, we can't run from it. Most of the time, such "reactions" or consequences are delayed. The two most commonly delayed consequences of our choices are our happiness and our sorrows as well as the happiness and sorrow of others. What we choose now may bring immediate happiness for ourselves, but later on we find out that such choices were not worth it and then we have guilt for the things that would have truly made us happy in the days and years to come. Such choices can be spending all our time on our phone, or reading for long periods of time, or not going to church on Sunday because you have too much homework, or not going out with the missionaries when they ask for your help because you just "don't want to," or even something as drastic as "taking one puff of this cigarette won't really hurt, it's just once." One thing that we barely consider sometimes is that there are people who care about us so deeply that such choices hurt them, long before the choices hurt you. Such it is with our Heavenly Father. He gave us commandments, not to hold us back, but to help us live to our fullest potential, to become truly happy. Since He knows the true happiness that comes from obedience to those commandments, it hurts Him deeply when we break even the most simple commandment (ie keeping the Sabbath day holy). Not because we did it, but because of the misery that will ultimately follow. Here in the mission there are so many people that becomes a part of your heart and it feels like they rip it to pieces when they don't wish to listen or understand the importance of the gospel in their lives, or they say they understand, but they don't live it.

Use your agency carefully, if you need to give up a couple of things to do what the Lord asks of us, all the better. True sacrifice to be obedient is always worth it.

Mahal ko kayo

Sister Jones