A Very Merry Christmas

Hey!

This week was awesome!  The work went great, and we got to finish it all off with Christmas Eve and Christmas!  I got to Skype my family, and that was awesome (even though it was moving at a solid one-frame-per-minute).  Honestly, it felt completely normal, and I kind of just felt like I was at home on a normal day during it.  Surprisingly, albeit painful to have to turn off yesterday, I woke up today and haven't felt homesick really at all, so that's a miracle.  

But yeah, this week has been really successful!  We have been seeing all sorts of miracles and the work in the area has really started to pick up.  In the last week we got let into two peoples' houses while dooring, something that never happened to me in my first area.  One man, named Uwe, seemed to be having a really hard time for the Christmas season.  He was sobbing at the start of our lesson but as we proceeded on with it, we felt the spirit and he was laughing and smiling by the time we left.  We also found out he is a gifted woodcarver, and he eagerly showed us all sorts of cool things he has made.  

We were able to pick up even more potentials this week than the last, receiving 11 new ones!  We just fell one under our weekly goal though.  Bummer, but still, we are very happy about that.  I think that this area really does have a ton of potential!  I cannot wait to see what the coming weeks bring!

I found out bus and train contacts are some of the best ways to contact.  It's likely because people are less likely to viciously deny you when they still have a fifteen minute ride sitting across from you afterwards!  Whatever it may be, I have really grown to love it.  It's been one of the most uncomfortable environments to contact for me but hey, it's the most effective and the situation of the area has motivated me to lose fear of rejection.  

I'd like to share something that I read this week from the Book of Mormon.  It's from Alma 34, specifically the lesson that Amulek gives on the need for an Atonement, for justice and mercy to be satisfied and exercised for the salvation of men.  If you're a member of the church, you have probably heard this analogy many times, but regardless of if you have or not, I think talking about it increases our knowledge and faith of the Atonement, and so it is important.  So prepare to read through lots of things you may possibly already know.

As I read, I simply was looking for the answer of why Christ had to pay--and why He had to actually suffer to pay--for our sins.  It is essential first to not only know but have a testimony of the need for a Christ to come.  We all sin and make mistakes and in turn fall short of the Glory of God. The analogy this ties back to is a conflict that occurs between a debtor, us, and the person he must repay, or God.  We go into debt when we sin and if we want to inherit the Kingdom of God we must first be "debt-free".  Unfortunately, we alone do not possess the means to pay back a debt.  We must turn to a mediator--The Mediator, that is--to take our debts upon Him.  Christ is the only perfect person to have ever lived.  In other words, the only one who was debt free.  Not only that, but He had the ability to take on our debts, being the Son of God rather than an ordinary man and the one sent down to earth by our loving Heavenly Father to atone for us.  

Christ could then effectively take our debts upon him, as a man in debt cannot pay off and no one else was debt free.  A merciful man who would pay another's debt is himself not financially foolish or incompetent, but rather takes the debtor's debt up upon himself, and pays it, as though he were the debtor.  Similarly, but on a God-like level and infinite scale, Christ was spiritually immaculate, yet suffered the incomprehensible guilt and anguish for all sinners as though He had done such actions himself (see Book of Mormon Institute Manual Commentary for Alma 34:15-16).   

Knowing this has helped me to further realize just how actually crucial it is that Christ came, lived a sinless life, and through his combined absolute purity and Godhood, was able to Atone for us.  He had the ability to sin.  It is said that he came to earth to "suffer temptations" (Mosiah 3:7).  Knowing this is important, and helps us to further understand and appreciate the reality and feat of Christ's life and Atonement.  President Howard W. Hunter said: 

"It is important to remember that Jesus was capable of sinning, that he could have succumbed, that the plan of life and salvation could have been foiled, but that he remained true. Had there been no possibility of his yielding to the enticement of Satan, there would have been no real test, no genuine victory in the result. If he had been stripped of the faculty to sin, he would have been stripped of his very agency. It was he who had come to safeguard and ensure the agency of man. He had to retain the capacity and ability to sin had he willed so to do."

Wow, that's a lot of text.  I'm on a train to Nürnberg while writing this though, so don't worry, I don't spend my whole P-Days writing these letters.  Sorry about that, but I'd like to say that I love Christ and His sacrifice that He made for us.  I know that He was the ONLY being that could have done what He did, and He did it.  I know that Christ lives.  He, and our Loving Heavenly Father, loves us, and sacrificed His life, and suffered immensely to say the least, for us.  I'm so grateful to have had this chance to celebrate Him.  Without Him, there would be nothing to celebrate.  

I really hope you all had a wundervoll Christmas. Ich habe So viele Liebe für euch!

Love,

Elder Wallentine

PS: THE LEDERHOSEN ARE HAD:

  I made this look like it was taken in WWII.

 This, too.

 Spooky picture of Nürnberg church.