Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Snow, Sickness, Bear & Intelligence

First snow - finally!!

Baptism from last week

So this is going to be a super lame letter because NOTHING happened this week. We went on an exchange with the Chesterfield Hermanas (our sister training leaders) and I saw a family of recent converts that I knew from my first area and all the kids still know my name! And they are super cute. And on last p day we had a nerf war at the church, in the gym. We set up tables and chairs and chalkboards as obstacles and we had the nerf darts and little pipes that we used like blowguns and it was way fun. Then we played Oompa Loompa which is our mission's favorite sport. It is like ultimate Frisbee but with a football and the goal is the basketball hoop. It was pretty intense.

And then, I got strep. Which is the reason I went to the doctor again. I had had a sore throat the first part of the week, and on Tuesday and Wednesday I woke up with no voice but was a bit better later in the day. Then on Thursday, Friday and Saturday I was like dead. On Thursday I went to the doctor and my strep test came back negative but the doctor said he is sure it is strep anyways. And I knew it was, I could feel it. 
So yeah. This week mostly involved sleeping. But on Friday we went to a member dinner with The Murrells. Bro Murrell is our ward mission leader and Sis Murrell is always helping us out and they are just great. Guess what we ate at their house? Bear. A bear that Bro Murrell shot and Sis Murrell cooked. It was delicious! They are so great. We get to their house and there are hunting hats for us to wear on the table and Sis Murrell is pulling a bear roast out of the crockpot. 

That's basically what happened this week. I had to give my training on Wednesday, about diligence and consecration. I thought at first they were kind of random and unrelated, but then I realized that the way we achieve consecration is through diligence. You should all read the diligence section in PMG, in the chapter Christ-like attributes. Also both of those are great scripture study topics. I especially enjoyed studying diligence.
Also lately I've been thinking a lot about intelligence. I've been wondering if there is a sure way to tell if a thought is from Satan, from me, or from the Holy Ghost, because sometimes it is really hard to tell. And then I realized that I can just ask myself a simple question: "Is it the intelligent/logical thing to do?" and if the answer is yes, even if the thought is just from me, it is probably a good thing to do. If it is just something I thought I should do just because I wanted to, or because of pressure or whatever other thing, it is probably not what I should be doing.  So I've been trying to do that for the past few days and it has worked like a charm and I have been making much better choices.
This morning I was studying about intelligence, and in D&C 93:29-31, 36, and it was a wonderful scripture and it talks about basically how God gave us a brain and He made us smart enough to make our own decisions, and that is our agency. And so, if we want to know what we should do, we should not rely only on the Holy Ghost to tell us, we should use all the resources He has given us. We need to think it through. When I read that scripture about studying it out in your mind, a lot of times I just imagine like reading a scripture and pondering its meaning for hours or whatever, but it is really just thinking about which decision would be the most logical one, and then asking for a confirmation of it. It is just so interesting to me and I am still working on combining logic with Spirit; because I know they fit together perfectly, but my little human brain struggles with it sometimes. I am trying to break it out of it's usual habits of trusting in one, or the other, but really they work together all the time. The Spirit normally will not tell you to do anything crazy random that makes no sense, like go jump off a cliff or anything, without a reason. And obviously we don't have all the knowledge we need to be on the same page all the time with the Holy Ghost, but if we are trying to figure out something, we do have other tools we can and should use.
So yep, that's basically my life. Enjoy it. 
Hermana Emily Ann Pratt (I almost just put Emily n Pratt and left it... I'm tired.)




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