Hey Everyone!
Yet another awesome week at the MTC!! The MTC is such an amazing place because of its spirituality and the awesome people inside of it. I have some amazing brothers and sisters in my district and I feel blessed to be able to serve beside them for this short period of time.
My companion, Elder Nelson, and I are becoming closer than ever. We try to get to know each other a little bit better every day. At times we both get on each other’s nerves but we feel blessed to be able to have each other as companions. We both want to work hard and try to express love to all of our investigators.
One thing that I really want to share with everyone at home is an impression that I had this week. More than ever as I feel the spirit more strongly I have an intense desire to change for the better so that I can serve others. While watching a video in class I felt such a strong desire to be a diligent servant of God. I have felt this before, it is a yearning or a hunger deep inside of me to come closer to God and be better for him and his children. The only problem though is that this feeling fades and with it my desire to be diligent in my service to God. After class I talked with my teacher about how I can keep this desire burning inside me so that I will always be motivated to do right by God and serve others. He told me about a phrase they say in Brazil which is to feed your feelings. To feed your feelings is to make them grow. If you feed feelings of hate or anger you will hold grudges for years and be bitter over small disputes. While on the other hand if we feed righteous desires and feelings of love we will feel and increased desire to serve and love others. That is the key to act on the feeling you have immediately after feeling them and then continue to feed them for a life time.
As I was doing some personal study I read over Ether chapter 12. There are many great scriptures in this chapter but the one that really impressed me was verse 27, which says that God gives us weakness so that we can be made strong in him. I believe that this is the biggest way that we can feed our righteous desire. To recognize before God all the weaknesses we have then ask him to help us improve. It is not always easy to see our fault but I know that God can strengthen us to do all things. I have made a list of my weaknesses and every week I try to work on one of them praying to God that he will help me. I pray that all of you will feed your righteous desires and come closer to God. I love you all!!! Soooo much!
Love,
Elder Rice
