Really Real

Last week's pday adventures - football/catch in the rain!

Grötzie 

Highlights:

*We drove the CAR for the first time!! Now that was an adventure. I've learned that I 'back-seat' drive just as well as I actually drive. haha Just kidding

*We had Dusseldorf Zone Training where we were able to talk about stress, and do a variety of stress-relieving activities, that included eating edible paper and facing our stresses with a broom handle and a mattress.

MLC

*We were able to go to MLC in Frankfurt this week, which is always wonderful.

*All the buses and bahns were on strike on Tuesday in Duisburg...made it hard for our investigators to meet with us, but they tried to come! One stood at the Bahn station for 30 minutes in hopes one would come.

"That one time when..."

*Your investigator is trying to express what believing in Jesus Christ means to him, and through google translate he describes it as "honey for his heart".

*You watch a new member pay his Fast Offering for the first time, and you see the joy that just lights up his face. Church is true!

*Your investigator class on Sunday has to be translated into three different languages, because they all want to hear it in German so that they can learn...luckily the Spirit can speak all languages!

*An investigator comes up to you in the bus and tells you he wants to be baptized...and your jaw hits the floor, and you forget for a moment to promise blessings, because it was the last thing you thought he'd say.

I was thinking about what was said in General Konferenz, by Elder Rendlund.

The concept—“the greater the distance between the giver and the receiver, the more the receiver develops a sense of entitlement”—also has profound spiritual applications. Our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, are the ultimate Givers. The more we distance ourselves from Them, the more entitled we feel. We begin to think that we deserve grace and are owed blessings. We are more prone to look around, identify inequities, and feel aggrieved—even offended—by the unfairness we perceive. While the unfairness can range from trivial to gut-wrenching, when we are distant from God, even small inequities loom large. We feel that God has an obligation to fix things—and fix them right now!

 

...and I was thinking how that applies to goals, desires, and reality in general. In a world that seems to hinge on the latest newsflash, headline, Instagram post, or 'satisfying' moment, I think that this quote becomes incredibly relevant.

And there are several different variations of it:

*The longer we wait to act on the things we know to be right, the more fears we will experience.

*The more we 'consider' what we think we need to be happy, the less we will be able to recognize what we already have, and that it is actually enough to fulfill us totally.

*The longer we wait to turn to God, the more we will assume that He is not there.

*The more we consider what reality we would prefer, the less we will feel connected to our actual reality.

It's a good life!

love always,

Sister Roderer