Monday, April 11, 2016

When snow melts you get...mud. When your struggling through life (and any other time)...keep the Sabbath. Pics!

Hi everyone!

Well. It's been a little bit of a tough week. Nothing crazy bad happened... it's just been kind of cold again, so a lot of people went back into hiding for the week. So we spent a good deal of time knocking doors, with relatively little success. As knocking is probably the very least effective way to find new investigators, we're really trying to focus on helping our members to talk to their friends and acquaintances, because that is where miracles really happen. But that's a work in progress. And so we knock. And we talk to people. And we hope and pray that they listen to our message.

We were on exchanges with the elders in Victoriaville (sidenote: that was super cool, because I was serving there a few months ago so I got to hear about all the stuff that's going on in that town now. Memories :)) and I was with Elder Ridenour. We were parking at the end of the night outside our apartment. There is a giant puddle in front of our apartment building (in between the two giant piles of snow. Oh Canada.) which we usually walk across/through/around (depending on if it's frozen or not). Well, Elder Ridenour and I couldn't find parking in the normal spots, so we decided to just park in the puddle, thinking it wouldn't be that deep so no problem.

Well. We were wrong. And soon we found ourselves about a foot deep in mud and freezing water. As I was the passenger, it fell to me to get out and push. What joy. It took us a couple minutes, but we finally got out; the car was completely coated in mud by the end. Which is fun since we're going to have car inspections this Wednesday for zone conference. Oh well... it was their car, not Staci. :P It really wasn't that funny... but it was definitely interesting.

The thought that's been on my mind a lot this week has been the Sabbath Day. Throughout all scripture, the idea of a Sabbath, a day of rest, is mentioned multiple times.

I heard a saying in a talk I was listening to recently, and it struck me. "Our great-grandfathers called it the Holy Sabbath. Our grandfathers called it the Sabbath. Our fathers called it Sunday. And we call it the weekend."

Anybody anywhere can recognize that the values and truths in the world as a whole seem to be taking a larger and larger turn for the worse. But to what can we attribute this?

In Preach My Gospel (the go-to manual for missionary work), it states, "When a community or nation grows careless in its Sabbath activities, its religious life decays and all aspects of life are negatively affected."

Well, there's the answer. We gotta start with the Sabbath Day. It's a day of rest, rest from the world and its demands. A day to devote to the Lord so that He can give us the strength we need to overcome the struggles of life throughout the rest of the week. He wants to bless us with that strength; but if we're devoting HIS day to OUR shopping and sports and parties... how can He?

If you find yourself questioning why things go wrong in your life, start with the Sabbath. What do you do on that day of rest? What can you do better? There are some SUPER good videos that have been put on the lds.org website about this. I encourage all of you to watch them (ALL of them!); I promise that they're awesome and you'll find great ways to live this commandment with joy! :) Here's the link: 


But like seriously! You gotta watch these videos. They're the best!

I love you all. Thank you for your letters and prayers and support. You're all amazing!

En avant!

Elder Bryan McOmber
 
 We ate it all in less than a week. Missionary diets are a joke. XD

General Conference tie!

 Staci. Good old dependable Staci.

The view of Quebec city from down the river.
 

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