Labas Everyone!! Kaip Sekasi??
It's crazy to think that in three weeks I will be IN LITHUANIA! If you can't already tell I'm super super excited already! This week has been crazy and has flown by! To start off I was called as district leader a week and a half ago. After a week and a half I was released from that calling and called to zone leader so I have been busier than normal but it's a lot of fun! I just love serving!Also, this week the prayers of many missionaries were answered. We were walking to dinner a few nights ago and there we see it....it was Chick Fil' A!!!!!! Somehow we had gotten chick fil a for the whole MTC!!! Shout out to Uncle Kevin on that one!! It was the most heavenly meal I have had here at the MTC haha!Also, Elder Hugo Montoya came and spoke to us at the devotional. If you can recall he spoke at a recent general conference. It was hilarious because I leaned over to Elder Mecham and Elder Kendall and quoted Inigo Montoya from princess bride. We laughed a lot... and the first thing he said was dropping that joke so it was pretty funny! He gave a really good talk on smiling and showing people that you care, which was absolutely awesome and it reminded me a lot of you mom! Love you!!Last Sunday Elder Mecham gave a really good talk on faith and I thought I would share it with you!! It was a metaphor about the armour of God. How each piece of armour we wear is our faith. Our shield is our testimony! The strongest piece of armour that we have! The sword is the only piece we really fight with and that is the word of God/the spirit! As in regular armour, not every "chink of armour" is as strong as another piece. So when Satan sends his "fiery arrows" towards us, whether it be temptation, trials, or anything, what we need to do is defend ourselves! Satan tries to aim for those weak chinks in our armour and we know where those are. However, if we use our shield (which is our testimony, the strongest armour we have), we can lower it and deflect his bullets. I think it's cool to realize the shield and the sword are the only movable parts in our armour! So if ever you are feeling doubt in some area look to your testimony!! Use that shield!! Stand upon the rock of Christ and his Atonement! I testify he lives and loves each of us!
Another cool thing I learned this week goes with the story of Meshack, Abidnego, Shadrach. (I'm not even going to attempt to spell those names correctly). It is the story of the three boys who were tossed in the fire for not praying to false ideals. Anyways, a thing that I had never caught! If you look at verse 27 in Daniel chapter 3 I want to say...(I think that's were it is, if not just read the story) it talks about how they didn't smell of fire after they walked out of the burning furnace! Not even their clothes! Nothing!! Now think of a real campfire. Most of the time you come home from camping and have to wash all your clothes because you smell of campfire and smoke. So why would these three come out not smelling like fire? What did that have to do with anything? It is that God knows exactly how long we can be in the fire before we get out. The Lord knows exactly what we are going through trial wise and won't let anything happen to us!! We can be perfected through him! So when life feels like it's burning down all around us look to prayer for help! I promise he will be there and is there for you! He has a plan for you and it is a plan of happiness! I know as we strive to do our best the Lord will bless us!!Anyways! I love you all and miss you very much and would love to hear from everyone of you!!!Love,Vyresnysis Kurtis(next time I email you it'll be two weeks until I leave!!)
