Letter #6

Hey Cemyu! (yeah, that's family)

Okay, Rachel, just email me because I keep forgetting to bring your email address with me to send this letter! haha! So if you just send me an email, it would be a lot easier.

So the other day, there was a speaker and he spoke a bit about the parable of the talents and how just because you come into the field as a 5 talent missionary, you don't have room to relax. The missionaries who come in with 1 and 2 talents and leave with 2 and 4 are more pleasing to God than a 5 talent missionary who leaves with 8. I'm not sure how much I agree with that if you get into the technicalities of it, but I love the idea of it. I decided to finish out my mission as a twenty talent missionary! To do the best I can to please the Lord and grow and better myself while I am on my mission! I was also thinking about Charity. We had a lesson on it on sunday and I had been inspired to already be pondering it for a while before the lesson. Charity is sooo vital! It is what turns a member into a saint. A person into an angel. With out charity, no good would ever be done! "Hope hopeth, Faith believeth, but Charity? Charity acts." Oh! That is so great! Charity is that force that proves you love God! It reminds me of something I heard in my New Testament class with Brother Moore. There was a poem, or something... anyway it went something like "I was naked and you told me you were sorry for me. I was hungry, and you thanked the Lord for your food. I was sick and you prayed for me." If any of you could find this (Lindsey, you might remember.) That would be so great! It is such a powerful reminder that without charity, we are not Christ-like. Have all the hope and faith you want, without Charity, you are nothing. For Charity never faileth! So those were the thoughts I was having this past week. But even with all of those thoughts, I'm still terrible at really being edified! The night I had really pondered about these things, I, for whatever reason, was getting really annoyed with my companion. It was soooo stupid! He was telling me a spiritual thought and all I could think about was how annoying his voice was!! How terrible is that!? I knew I was wrong, so afterwards, I prayed to Heavenly Father and told Him I knew I was wrong and asked Him to help me come out of the irritation that had overtaken my emotions The Lord very clearly told me to go to where I was reading in the Book of Mormon and pick up from there. He told me my answer was waiting for me there. It was so clear that was what I was supposed to do, but I didn't understand why. Nothing what I was reading about at the time had anything to do with what I was experiencing. But I read and no joke, After reading for like five minutes I came upon Ether 12:35 (and the verses preceding it) It's Moroni talking about how he was worried that the gentiles would mock him, not for his words and their meaning, but for simply they way he wrote and the awkwardness of his words. But the Lord reassures him and Moroni says what he says in verse 35!! I'll let you look it up, but it was totally the Lord speaking directly to me! I was totally being like the gentiles!! I was annoyed at my companion not for his words, simple the way he spoke! Just earlier that day I had a set a goal to be a twenty talent missionary and to be more charitable and by that night, the Lord is chastising me and warning me to be more charitable or else he'll take the talents that I have and give them to someone else more worthy! What a straight and narrow path! What a strong and piercingly specific answer! I have so much I need to work on! But that's good right? I can't quadruple my investment for the Lord if I've got everything going for me already, right? I need to be less prideful.

Mom, My sheets are fine, thanks for checking. I love you all! The MTC Is great! I'm so excited for the New Russians to come in! They got delayed a week, so they aren't coming until next week, so that's a bummer, but whatever! More time to become more intimidatingly mediocre at the language! Love you all!

Elder Swartz!