Well due to recent events i will not be finishing last weeks story
unles I type faster than i usually do. Instead I have something i
would like to share with you that has recently helped me open my eyes
a little wider on.. well pretty much everything.
Over the past few weeks here in the mission i have found myself
becoming increasingly more frustrated,angered, and over all less
patient with the happenings around me. Be it my companion, the
conditions of my living quarters, or simply the people in my day to
day events. I have been in conflict with myself trying to figure out
why I havent been just completely happy! Especially since I'm on the
mission and all. I had been praying for help, I had been praying for
everything around me to realize its self and i had been hoping and
thinking that "oh, things will be better when i´m senior companion" or
"things will be better when this person changes or when someone else
stops doing something". I just didnt understand why I couldnt just, Be
happy! Or why my prayers maybe werent being answered.
The other day i was reading in the fourth missionary talk where i
found a passage that completely took my thoughts for a run. For some
reason I felt as if I had never read it before even though I had read
that talk at least 5 or 6 times. I´m now going to quote to you the
passage that i read strait from the talk.
"Every challenge you face, every hard thing you confront, every
bad thing that happens to you, every unfairness, every conflict, every
sadness, tragedy, every disappointment and heartache, every temptation
and every opposition happens for one purpose only: to give you
opportunity to respond by applying in your life the teachings of Jesus
Christ. As you do so you are changed to become more like Him."
"If you were never presented with some advantage to be gained
by dishonesty, such as recognition, or money, or a better grade on a
test or avoidance of punishment or embarrassment, you could never
develop integrity. If no one ever offended you, you could never learn
to forgive or internalize mercy. Were you never wearied by the
annoying behavior of another or the repeated failures of someone else
you could never become patient. Were you never subjected to the
appetites and passions of the physical body for food, for water and
for sexual fulfillment you could not develop self mastery. Without
opposition the plan would be frustrated, you could not progress and
the purpose of life would be unachievable."
After reading this I realized that if christ had answered my
prayers and my hopes that he would have been taking away my
opportunity to learn, grow, and ultimately my purpose of life here on
earth. I´ve learned that trials are not just problems which happen or
just come up, but that trials are opportunities for us to become better
people. Trials are why we exist. We are here to accumulate, through
trials, the qualities of christ and IF we handle the trials correctly
and we do accumulate those qualities, we will achieve our ultimate
goal and live in gods presence again.
Well, believe it or not when I pray now, I no longer do so for my
trials to end and resolve themselves but I now thank him for the
opportunities he has given me to learn, grow, accumulate the qualities
of christ and become a better person. I´m not telling you that the
trials have gotten or will get easier, but i will tell you that my
question on why life gets hard and why my prayers may not always be
answered is now understood.
Thank you so much for all the emails, letters, love, and support i
recieve. I love you all and pray for you always
Elder Wimmer
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