IT IS AN OLD TESTAMENT THOUGHT

Hey guys!

It has been an awesome week.  We have been working with some really cool investigators, including two from China who are progressing really well.  We have become good friends with them and they seem to have some strong, sincere desire.  Also, a good friend of mine from Kaiserslautern, Tensor, got baptized, and I cheered when I heard it!  It is nice to see someone that I found be baptized because that has given me a huge motivation boost to contact more.  

We had an awesome time last P-Day evening because some members fed us THANKSGIVING DINNER.  It was sweet.  I was so grateful to be able to feel so close to home on that day.  It certainly beats the heck out of having a microwave lasagna with old stuffing (last year)!

We also did a hot chocolate street display.  It was fun and we did find some people.  It also boosted our spirits to carry out the church‘s new Christmas initiative this Christmas.  However, I also feel that it would have been better to just do a regular street display and just focus on finding new people through sharing the main messages of the church, because we didn’t find nearly as many through simply pushing the initiative.  However, I think it was more impressionable and positive for the people we talked to, whether or not they had interest, because I am sure there were some who otherwise wouldn’t have listened.

IT‘S A SPIRITUAL THOUGHT FROM THE O.T.:

I don’t expect you to read this. Do so if you will.

I have recently had the chance to study some of the "Wisdom Books" and other writings of the Old Testament, namely Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.  I must say that I have been surprised by how much power these books have contained, and the help that they have been to develop my testimony of God and Christ.  Right now, I am reading Isaiah, which has been wonderful, but I figured that I could share an insight or two with you from Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes is an interesting book so far because of the different tone that it seems to take which is different from many other books in the Bible.  Especially so if read from a worldly perspective, the preacher-author has a seemingly lamenting tone, proclaiming the fleetingness of labor and experiences in our mortal lives.  For example, he writes concerning death the following:

"Then said I in my heart, as it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity [fleeting]. For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? As the fool." (2:15-16).  

One could initially read this book and interpret them as though the writer is saying that nothing ultimately matters, as all is vanity and fleeting. This assumption can be drawn through perhaps multiple parts of the book. However, the true purpose and belief of the preacher is revealed in the final chapter of the book.  He writes about death:

"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it (...) Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."

From my reading, I believe that the preacher writes in a pessimistic-sounding tone to emphasize that those things with which men most often occupy themselves are fleeting, specifically the pursuits of wealth, power, admiration of others, and peace as the world defines it.  Indeed will these things cease to exist beyond the grave.  God will not judge us for our financial or social success, but rather for the thoughts and intents of our hearts, and the works and potential we accomplished and achieved.  Wisdom, on the other hand, remains with us.  Wisdom is seen in this point of the Bible as righteousness combined with knowledge--and to be wise is the notion that one not only knows much, but lives based off of that truth which he has learned and is morally straight.  The scriptures teach that “whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life [will] rise with us in the resurrection.“ (D&C 130:18), and so as sure as we will be judged by our earthly actions, so will we retain the knowledge of our righteousness and wickedness, and so will we still remember that which we have learned through both secular and religious education.

Anyways, this is a long letter.  I am particularly enjoying my studies right now because I feel I am getting more insights than ever before, from both the Book of Mormon and Bible.  I think the two things that I got from this short analysis is that:

1. In a world full of distractions it is dire to seek after the things which will not perish at the end of our mortality
2. ‘‘Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.“ (Proverbs 4:7)

Thanks for playing!  Love you guys!

Have a great Christmas season!

Love,

Elder Wallentine

Hey fam!

Hey fam!

Happy thanksgiving!  I hope you are all enjoying yourselves and are making the best of the time off you all (probably) have!  It has been a good week.  We have set a few baptismal dates with new people, but unfortunately those who have been previously showing potential for baptismal-readiness have slowed down and hesitated in their decisions. All in all, I have faith they will make a good decision concerning the matter at some point, whether it be sooner or later.  The biggest thing we can do is find more people!

We went to a toy museum today.  It was exactly what I expected. You look at toys and learn about them.  NO TOUCH THOUGH.  It was fun though.  Wouldn't go back, but it was fun.

Things have been rollin!  My companion has been awesome and is being a really good source of strength for me and the companionship.  I am grateful for his help and we have a lot of fun and laughs with each other, and it is just a great time!  Tiring, but great!  Sometimes I come home and just need to sit down and rest in silence, drawing or reading or something.  I can definitely feel myself getting more tired as I go, but I have learned that I need to keep up the pace, because if you stop, it is harder to pick things up.  It is like running a cross country race, where stopping may sound tempting when we're worn out, but will just make finishing harder if we choose to.

I am grateful for my mission, for my family who has brought me up, for the friends who have supported me, for the great influences elsewhere to which I can turn, for this gospel, and greatest of all, for Jesus Christ.  I am grateful to be able to commemorate His birth throughout the next month preceding Christmas, and for the rest of my life and mission.  I know He lives.

Have a great day!

Love,
Elder Wallentine

Hey Guys!

Hey fam!

This week has been good!  Some change is going down.  I ended my companionship with Elder Fawcett and have been paired up with Elder Warr.  Elder Fawcett was a Great companion and I learned a ton from being with him.  I hope to be better this transfer and know what to do to be so!  Elder Warr has been awesome so far and we have been working very well together with a lot of energy.

Unfortunately, our friend Johannes has told us that he will need more time before being baptized.  We won't be having a baptism this week, but we intend on getting him in the water at some point!

Other than that, not much to report, but the work goes on!

Love you guys!

Elder Wallentine

The Infinite Love of God!

Hey folks!

This week has been AWESOME!  We have been seeing so many more cool things happening, and it is making me lose my marbles!  The first of which was that one of our investigators, Johannes, has told us that he is focusing on being baptized on the 18th of November.  There is nothing right now that will be holding him back from being baptized on that date.  He is repentant, coming to church, and becoming increasingly converted.  We are focusing right now on helping the members bring him in with love and open arms.  If he can feel welcome, I think he will make it for sure.  He is an awesome man.  However, as we may have seen in the past, things can happen before people are baptized that will try to drive them away.  If you can keep him in your prayers, please do so, because we need, and he needs, all the help possible!

We also met with an investigator around the same area, who has said that she has received a spiritual confirmation through a movie that the Book of Mormon is true, which I find really awesome.  She said she received the answer while watching ''God Is Not Dead'', which I actually haven't seen.  But yeah, she said that she felt that she needed to read in the Book of Mormon while watching the movie, and when she began to read she said she felt ''mega good''!  Although it is subtle, I can't help but know that that was the same feeling I felt as I got my own answer.  We have told her and testified that it truly was an answer, and plan to emphasize that fully this coming Saturday.  Stay tuned!

I feel like writing about something about which there seems to be a lot of disagreement.  In fact, Elder D. Todd Christofferson gave a talk about this particular topic in General Conference in October 2016, titled : ''Abide in My Love''  I would recommend this talk for any person who has confusion on the following matter because he clarifies it really well. 

The confusion to which I refer is concerning the meaning the word ''love'' when we speak about God's form of it.  I believe it is first important to say emphatically YES: God loves us!  In fact, His love is truly perfect and immaculate.  He is perfectly fair and knows each of us perfectly as our Eternal Father.  He has observed us through the ions of time and has rejoiced in seeing us grow.  He does not stop to rejoice as we continue our sojourning on the earth in this time in righteous ways.  Because God loves us perfectly, He has provided us with His Son Jesus Christ, that we may have joy and peace, as well as freedom and salvation from our own spiritually-fatal flaws and sins which we all make.  Through His Son, whom the Father has provided, we are given the incomprehensibly powerful gift of redemption, both from the heavy chains of spiritual death, or sin, and the weight of physical death.  Again, we all must face these two things throughout our life as a result of being here as mortals.  However, we are able to find redemption from them. 

 

God's love makes Him desire the best for us.  What is the best?  Eternal life.  Eternal life is the life that our Father now possesses, and it is the opportunity to eternally progress and receive a fullness of joy and godly perfection. God's plan, and God's love are those things which allow us to return to him.

So, let me emphasize again that it cannot be emphasized enough how much God loves us.  His love will always be there for the most righteous and the most wicked of people.  Nobody sins so much that they are beyond His reach.

Here is the problem though: Many people associate this love with ignoring of flaws, unwarranted forgiveness of sin and rebellion, or allowance of violations against both God's commandments and the laws of the universe.  Some reason: If God loves me, then he will accept me for who I am, and will understand that a sinner is who I am and who I will be.  Though this isn't always said out-loud, there is a whiff of ''I can do whatever I want, because God loves me and will forgive me.''

This, however, is not accurate when we understand the difference between God's love and God's ability to bless us, including with the gift of eternal life.  God's love is there, and will always be there, for those who sin.  This means that those who repent and come unto Him through the mercy of His son, Jesus Christ, will be forgiven and redeemed, because that is the glory of His love.  However, His ability to bless us is conditional based upon our own righteousness.  When we sin, we forfeit blessings, and often times a number of them.  We lose the companionship of the Holy Ghost, and our ability to feel God's love is diminished.  If we continue in sin, we lose the ability to feel God's love, and His blessings are lost.

If we continue through life, dwelling in sin, refusing to change or repent, and rebelling against God in this sense, we may find out that we lose His greatest blessing: Eternal life. However, that is not to judge any particular person, because in the end, God is the judge.  If someone is prohibited from receiving such a gift, I can only assume that it breaks God's heart, and that He has true sorrow over it. But His love is there. One is only prohibited from the blessings of it because of his own rebellion.  

I hope that this makes sense.  I do not have much time today.  It is also a better use of time for you to read Elder Christofferson's talk over this because he took more time to explain and is an educated prophet and a great man much smarter than I am.  But I bear testimony that God's love is there for us, and if we do not feel it, it is not because He has lost it, but because we have driven it out of ourselves.  In this case, we must ask ourselves:  What have I done to drive it out of my heart, and what must I now do to receive it and its contained blessings?  If we answer these correctly and follow them, I know that we will receive all the blessings He has for us as we strive forward continually.  

Also, Elder Sabin came to the mission this week, and talked to us.  It was AWESOME.  I will share more experiences about it next time around.

Love you guys!

Elder Wallentine

Hey folks!

Hey folks!

It has been a good week!  I am going to keep this lighting fast!  I will count my Facebook post this past week as my spiritual thought.  I will repost it below if anybody forgot to read it.  

We had an awesome lesson yesterday with a man named Matthias.  His wife is actually a return missionary and he is interested in joining the church at some time.  My companion, Elder Fawcett, found him going through the phone, and it turns out that he is pretty golden.  We had an awesome time teaching him and it just seems that he is a super humble guy and is ready and willing to learn the gospel and follow it.  We will definitely be excited to work with him and get him ready for baptism in the future!

Dietel came to church this week, which was also awesome!  He is doing a great job progressing!

Other than that, that is all I will share.  Thanks for reading!

Love,

Elder Wallentine

It is only fitting that on one of the darkest, spookiest times of the year, I am able to share something with you all that I have been thinking about rather often for the past while. It always takes up more space to write than I originally anticipate. Whoops!:

We may often times feel surrounded by darkness in our lives. For crying out loud, sometimes it seems as though the world is covered in it! Darkness takes many forms, among which fear, ridicule, sin, confusion, addiction, and outright evil are included. I believe we all want to remove at least most of these, perhaps even in ourselves and loved ones. But how?

We all are aware that darkness is not a tangible thing in and of itself. It is not composed of any regular material, but is instead manifested in the absence of light. If we have a dark room we want to be made bright, we don't start by scooping up the darkness with a shovel and throwing it away, because we can't. Instead, we must replace it with light by, for instance, flipping a switch. The light overpowers the darkness and seems to cause it to vanish, illuminate the room and creating a vision for us of all things in it. We are able to, through the light, see clearly.

The solution remains about the same in the other forms of darkness. We must seek out light. The more we learn actual truth, and study it in action and mind, the better we become at being able to collect light. Simply put, the more light and truth we receive, the weaker the role darkness has. A certain part of Doctrine and Covenants, section 50, puts it perfectly:

"That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day. And again, verily I say unto you, and I say it that you may know the truth, that you may chase darkness from among you."

So, want to eliminate problems in your life, in the lives of others, and the world at large? Begin by discovering light and practicing true principles. Chase darkness from among you. As we seek to do so, I invite us all to find greater light and truth. That is what is contained in my message that I'm here to share! I am open to share with any and all of you. Send a message and we can find greater light together!

Have a great evening!