Dear Family and Friends,
"Many years ago, I took the Scouts on a campout in the desert. The boys slept by a large fire they had made, and like every good Scout leader, I slept in the back of my truck. In the morning when I sat up and looked at the campsite, I saw one Scout, whom I will call Paul, who looked particularly rough around the edges. I asked how he had slept, and he replied, “Not very well.”
When I asked why, he said, “I was cold; the fire went out.”I answered, “Well, fires do that. Wasn’t your sleeping bag warm enough?”
No answer.
Then one of the other Scouts loudly volunteered, “He didn’t use his sleeping bag.”
I asked in disbelief, “Why not, Paul?”
Silence—then finally the sheepish reply: “Well, I thought if I didn’t unroll my sleeping bag, I wouldn’t have to roll it up again.”
True story: he froze for hours because he was trying to save five minutes of work. We may think, “How foolish! Who would ever do that?” Well, we do it all the time in much more dangerous ways. We are, in effect, refusing to unroll our spiritual sleeping bags when we don’t take the time to sincerely pray, study, and earnestly live the gospel each day; not only will the fire go out, but we will be unprotected and grow spiritually cold.
When we are complacent with our covenants, we are complicit with the consequences. The Lord has counseled us “to beware concerning yourselves, to give diligent heed to the words of eternal life.” And He further declared, “My blood shall not cleanse them if they hear me not.”
In reality, it is much easier to be “all in” than partially in. When we are partially in or not in at all, there is, in the Star Wars vernacular, “a disturbance in the force.” We are out of sync with God’s will and therefore out of sync with the nature of happiness."
Love, Elder Larsen
Another awesome week has flown by here in Yukon! Fun fact about Oklahoma: The weather is straight nuts. It was summer on Tuesday, winter on Wednesday, Spring on Thursday and Friday, and back to Winter on Saturday and Sunday. It changes so fast!
Monday for P-day we went to downtown OKC which was fun :) I took a ton of pictures so Happy Birthday Mom! :) In the evening we did a lot of tracting.
Tuesday was a longer day. We tracted for hour after hour after hour. Got a couple of potentials. Had dinner with the Edwards family which was slightly chaotic as usual, this time because their drains were backed up and house smelled a little like sewage. Got to love it :)
Wednesday morning we went with a member to go meet a non-member who's receiving some financial help from the church. Bishop sent us because he felt like it might be a good missionary opportunity and it was. She seems pretty open and hopefully we'll be able to go back and teach her sometime soon :) In the afternoon, our appointment with Justin fell through so we went to the library and talked to them about doing a presentation on family history for the community. They seem to like the idea so we're excited to get that ball rolling. Hopefully family history will be a better finding tool than tracting :) After that we taught a quick restoration to Jeff and Emily and they are new investigators now! #Miracle Then we had dinner and watched meet the mormons with some of the sisters investigators in El Reno :)
Thursday morning we went to go teach Joseph but he wasn't there. Again. So he's dropped as an investigator for now. But as a backup we went and saw Ms Murphy and taught her the rest of the plan of salvation and she accepted it really well :) In the afternoon we did our weekly planning and stopped by a couple of peeps before dinner. After dinner we went with a member and had a great lesson with Gayle. We read 2 Nephi 32 and recommitted her to reading and praying about the Book of Mormon. We also invited her to the pancake breakfast on Saturday morning and she said she just might surprise us and show up.
Friday we had district meeting. In the afternoon we tried some people and ended up tracting before dinner. After dinner we tried more potentials, did some more tracting, and talked with Freddie briefly (he has 2 jobs now and so he doesn't have much time unfortunately).
Saturday morning we had a pancake breakfast fundraiser for the youth at the church. Gayle showed up for it which surprised us since it stormed all night and the weather was still pretty bad. She got to meet some people and she said the temple was beautiful. So that was awesome! #Miracle After that we did coordination meeting with our amazing ward mission leader. Then we went home, had lunch, did some planning, tracted, had dinner and a lesson with the Edwards, and then our 8:00 appointment fell through. Cold rainy day :)
Sunday was good. It felt like winter outside and it was super windy so that made tracting really fun :) But we were able to have a lesson with a less-active family and visit our recent converts so that was a tender mercy.
One of my favorite stories from conference was this one from Elder Sabin's talk:
When I asked why, he said, “I was cold; the fire went out.”I answered, “Well, fires do that. Wasn’t your sleeping bag warm enough?”
No answer.
Then one of the other Scouts loudly volunteered, “He didn’t use his sleeping bag.”
I asked in disbelief, “Why not, Paul?”
Silence—then finally the sheepish reply: “Well, I thought if I didn’t unroll my sleeping bag, I wouldn’t have to roll it up again.”
True story: he froze for hours because he was trying to save five minutes of work. We may think, “How foolish! Who would ever do that?” Well, we do it all the time in much more dangerous ways. We are, in effect, refusing to unroll our spiritual sleeping bags when we don’t take the time to sincerely pray, study, and earnestly live the gospel each day; not only will the fire go out, but we will be unprotected and grow spiritually cold.
When we are complacent with our covenants, we are complicit with the consequences. The Lord has counseled us “to beware concerning yourselves, to give diligent heed to the words of eternal life.” And He further declared, “My blood shall not cleanse them if they hear me not.”
In reality, it is much easier to be “all in” than partially in. When we are partially in or not in at all, there is, in the Star Wars vernacular, “a disturbance in the force.” We are out of sync with God’s will and therefore out of sync with the nature of happiness."
I love this story because it illustrates how important it is to be all in and to put God first in our lives. It may be hard at first but in the end, it's really the easiest and the happiest way to live :)
Thank y'all for your love and support! Transfers are coming up on May 10th so if you're sending me something, the safe place to send it is
1967 W 33rd Street
Ste. 100
Edmond OK 73013
Ste. 100
Edmond OK 73013
D&C 130:18-19
P.S. Just wanted to make a shoutout to my cousin Sarah who had been called to serve a mission and assigned to labor in the new hampshire maine mission! Congrats cousin, I'm so excited for you!
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