Hey everyone what's up? Hope Christmas was all good. I'm betting you guys passed in in cooler temperatures than I did, hopefully with more snow too. If Monticello doesn't have more snow than Esmeraldas right now, it's gonna be a rough summer.. . I enjoyed talking with all of you. I was informed of some of the people that read my blog. I know it's late, but Merry Christmas to Jimmy & Carol Forrest. I hope it passed well and that your family is doing well. Thanks for all the prayers and support. This week was fairly hard. The work here is hard, but we just have to keep working with what we have. This Sunday nobody felt the need to attend so that was rough. Our two persons that were going to be rescued didn't attend so that's delayed for more time. we worked hard to find new people and everything but right now it's just hard. But we are going to keep working. For Christmas, we had a zone meeting, We had lunch, and we called our families and went to the house at 5 p m. Then we studied for the majority of the time. We ate a little, and ya it was good, listened to all the music they were playing around our house which wasn't what I'd call Christmas carols, but ya ha ha, I'm all good. I have a new shirt with a calculus equation on it and i have new belt so life is good in the neighborhood. We had a snow ball fight with the fake snow you guys sent me, It was great. While we were studying a lot this week I read a scripture that I like a lot in 2 cor 9:7,"Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity, For god loveth a cheerful giver." The scritpure impacted me pretty hard so I began to study a little more with cross references and everything I found in Deuteronomy 15:11 it says,"For the poor shall never cease out of the land, therefore I command thee saying, thou shalt open thy hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy in the land." I also remembered the talk by Jeffrey R. Holland titled "Are We Not all Beggars?" This comes from Mosiah chapter 4 where it also says, "perhaps thou thalt say, the man has brought upon himself his misery, therefore i will stay my hand. . .Wherefore, oh man, I say unto you, whoseover doeth this, the same hath great cause to repent. . For are we not all beggars, wo we not all depend on the same being, even god, for the substance which we have." It was right there when I thought, ya know, our job is not to judge the poor or how they became poor. If our job was to judge them, God would have given it to us. What we need to do is give to those in need, It's not important how they got there. What's important is that we help them. If we do, it says in Proverbs 19:17,"He that hath pity on the poor, lendeth to the lord, and that which he hath given will he pay him again." Also in Acts 20:35,"it is more blessed to give than to receive." I love this principle, I think one of the members here demonstrates this principle very well. Her name is Evolin, Evolin is really poor. she works every single day selling the bread that she makes every night. She doesn't get a whole lot of hours of sleep every night becuase she is doing things for work. Whenever we visit her, she is usually very tired, but still working hard with her work. There is also something really cool she does almost everytime we visit. She stops everything and makes us some type of lunch or food. She tells us it is becuase she want to do something good for God, so she treats the missionaries well. She is poor but she always has enough to live. It's hard but it's amazing how she, being so tired and busy can cheefully give of what little she has. This is someting that can bless our lives a lot, when we remember those who have less than we do. It is something that has been taught basically forever by the prophets and apostles. That's pretty much what I've got this week, I love you guys. Happy New Years, Talk to you next week. Love you guys.
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AuthorThis blog is dedicated to Easton Nielson's mission to Ecuador Quito North Mission. Archives
March 2016
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