Hey everyone! :)
I`ve got no pictures or videos this week (sorry, Mom). :( It`s been a week of comprehension, in which I`ve come to understand some cool things.
We had a pretty funny moment earlier this week. We were running late to get home and we needed to catch a bus. As we came out of our appointment we starting running for the bus stop, only to watch the bus pull across the intersection in front of us. We looked at each other and then at the map, and then at the bus schedule, and realized it would take another half hour or so for the next bus. We needed to take this bus to another bus that would take us home, and this would throw our whole schedule off and get us home like a half hour later than we needed to be home. So what did we do?
We started running. We felt pretty proud as we counted up the distance and the time later that night and realized that we ran a mile in about 8 minutes. In dress shoes and a white shirt and tie, after a year and a half of poutine, that`s not too bad! :P
On Friday we had a zone conference with the combined Montréal Nord and Montréal Sud zones. It was awesome. President Phillips had asked us to come prepared to give a two-minute talk based on a talk given by Elder David A. Bednar, one of the members of the Quorum of the Twelve. His talk was about how we can come to better know the Savior. President would be calling on some of us to share our talks in the conference. As I prepared, I also studied a talk called, "The Fourth Missionary," and I learned something very interesting that I thought I already knew, but I learned it with my heart this time, rather than just my head:
In order to be changed by the Savior`s grace, we have to give him our will.
This is more than just obedience. Being obedient without enjoying it does practically nothing for us; it`s like giving a gift without really wanting to. It might profit others around us, but it profits us nothing. And that`s not the point of commandments. While we might be giving the Lord our might and strength, our minds are wandering to what we wish we could be doing, and our hearts yearn for those other things. Obedience without our heart is like trying to win the Tour de France without a bike chain; you may be spinning the gears, but you`ll never get anywhere.
So how can we give Him our will? It`s honestly as simple as just doing it. We just have to come to Him in prayer and promise Him that we`ll hand it all into His hands, our families, our job, our schooling, our everything. And in those moments where we have to make a decision, we have to ask ourselves what He would do, what His will is, and then do so. It`s simple, but not always easy. Getting out of my comfort zone to walk over and talk to a huge, scary-looking Quebecois man is not always (or really ever) easy. And I may not necessarily love the action itself of pushing myself out of my comfort zone to do things. But I love serving the Lord, and I love following the Spirit. And I`ve come to find that regardless of the outcome of my decisions, I am always happy as I recognize that I did my best and tried to do His will.
I was sitting in church yesterday, looking around at everyone, and a phrase came very clearly to my mind. "Suffer the little children to come unto Me." (Mark 10:14) I love this section of the New Testament, as Christ`s disciples recognize He is exhausted and try to turn away a group of parents who are bringing their children to be blessed by Him. Christ rebukes His disciples and invites all the little children to come unto Him. This thought came to my mind as I was looking at a family with many little children, all of whom can be a bit rowdy on occasion. I was rebuked personally for perhaps being a bit annoyed when these situations would occur. But then I had a lightbulb moment.
Can`t we all become little children?
Mosiah 3:19 - "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."
These aren`t just adjectives that describe us as we are somehow instantaneously and magically transformed from sinner to perfect saint. These are steps, attributes to be acquired through doing what people with those attributes would do. If we want to give the Lord our heart, we must be submissive. Meek. Humble. Patient. Full of love. We must be willing to submit to all things He seeth fit to let us struggle through, remembering that our Father wants nothing but the best for us.
Give Him your heart!
En avant!
Elder Bryan McOmber
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