Week 21

My week was good. It is raining a lot here. We worked on finding new people this week and we had 4 new people at church on Sunday. I'm tired. What else... I've been studying a lot and am super excited for general conference. This is my advice, during the week write down all the questions you have pray about them and then listen fervently to the talks. I've never been so excited for a general conference before, but we get to listen to living prophets of God! This week I've studied a lot about the difference between the natural man and our divine potential. How do we overcome the natural man and reach our divine potential. I believe part of the answer is found in Matt 16:25. Those who lose their life for the sake of the Lord, will find it. It has a lot to do with the will of God. I read something that said there are two types of obedience. Obedience because we know we should obey, so we obey but we withhold our heart. We submit to the will of God but on the inside we want to do what we want to do. The other type of obedience is when we submit to the Lord. When we obey and do what he wants because that is also what we want. Jesus set the example first. He came to do the will of the Father, "I do nothing of myself but because the father sent me." In 1 John 2:15-17 we are taught to love God and do his will, he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. In Romans 12:2 we are taught to be transformed by the will of God. When we submit to his will we give ourselves over to him, he will make the most of us. There is something I was reading that said the only thing that God doesn't have is our heart and our will. He cannot make the most of us if he doesn't have us. Later it says God will make a masterpiece of you, you will make a smudge. You will make an ordinary man. He will make a God. We often give our time and our strength to him (obedience 1): we go to church, we do our home teaching, we do family home evening, but we withhold our heart and our will. The commandment is Love your God with all your HEART might MIND and strength. So how do we give him our heart and will? It starts in our mind and then our heart follows. In the end it is the easiest way, the smartest way. 1 Cor. 2:9 look it up.

Anyway, that is a little bit of what I studied this week. My thoughts are mixed in there with other things I read. Hope everybody has a good week. Love and miss you all.

Elder Peterson