Up and Moving!

Tuesday was transfer day. Helped get the whole zone comfy in their spots and I went up to get E Griffin. We had a leadership training with the MLC and then scooted on up to Santa Monica. The mission doctor hadnt yet released E Griffin, so we had to rest for the day. We went to get Persian Desert with one of the assistants, E Kawamitsu. Its amazing what a few words in Farsi and 3 cute boys in shirts and ties will do, we walked out of there with a ton of free food! E Griffin and I spent the rest of the day at the mission home with President and Sister Haynie. We helped out with the departing missionary dinner, got to see E Sugden and then while the marriage/post-mission talk was happening we bounced and took a drive up into Malibu! #ApprovedRestDay

Wednesday morning we woke up and left the mission home and headed back to San Pedro! Its been good, but definitely slower. E Griffin has to take it easy, take breaks here and there, dont want to get a hernia! 

Alexa came to church!! She is awesome! She tried to come 2 weeks ago but got confused and went to the church across the street. This week we went to go wake her up for church, and she was already waiting for us in her car! Who waits for the missionaries for church?! She drove behind us and she made it to church. She absolutely loved it and is excited to come back! We stopped by at work, the local burger place and brought her a Book of Mormon. While we were explaining it, a co-worker came up and started asking questions which was super cool. The staff loves us, calls us "The boys" and now we get free food. :) Alexa is so cool and its been cool to see how she has warmed up to the gospel. 

We had a lesson with a man named Arturo Friday night. E Griffin had taught him the restoration on splits about 2 weeks ago and we were stopping by to follow up with the Book of Mormon and praying. He had skimmed a little bit of it, and had some great questions. We read through the intro with him and then flipped to 3N11 and read about when Christ came to America. We had an awesome discussion about how the Book of Mormon can help us and help bring our families closer together. At the end of the lesson we asked if we could kneel and have a prayer. Arturo was a bit nervous and E Griffin offered an example prayer. It was Arturo's turn and it was so special and just so sincere to see him try and mimic E Griffin's prayer. He wants whats best for his small family so bad and it was so touching to see him humbly offering maybe his first prayer ever on his knees to His Heavenly Father. So cool! 

I think the relationship between desire, virtue and blessings is interesting. I know I have been frustrated at times when I fall short of the mark. Sometimes we do all in our power and still we fall short. Sometimes all we can do, our best, is a simple desire to believe, to do, to become. I know Elder Holland last conference said, "With the gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the strength of heaven to help us, we can improve, and the great thing about the gospel is we get credit for trying, even if we don’t always succeed." Christ's Atonement makes it possible, it covers us after all we can do. We have the responsibility to do all we can, and that is hard, and it is way inconvenient. 

Brigham Young said, "...the men and women, who desire to obtain seats in the celestial kingdom, will find that they must battle every day”. Although life is hard, we can maintain the peace and hope of a brighter future. We must conquer the nature man, and its accompanying desires. "The natural man desires to wallow in self-pity". While our situations, circumstances and environments are uniquely different, the gospel works for everyone. It all starts with our desires. This morning I read this from Elder Neal A Maxwell, "...when people are described as “having lost their desire for sin,” it is they, and they only, who deliberately decided to lose those wrong desires by being willing to “give away all [their] sins” in order to know God (Alma 22:18)." I know as we submit to God and allow Him to shape our lives, our desires will turn from the natural, selfish things of this world to the eternal and joyful things of the Father's plan.