Because I have been given much . . .

 

 

Hey Mom. Don't worry. The first step to growing old is becoming a grandparent and you still have lots of time before you become one of . . . oh well mmm never mind.

 

But I think that growing old is necessary. If we at some point didn't feel our body dying, either by time when we are old or cancer when we are young, I dont think that we would apprecieate our resurected body. I think that is why we must pass through death to become imortal. Because we can't fully understand life until we pass through death. (I am forgetting how to spell English, my spelling wasn't all that strong to begin with but without spell check in English it is getting worse.)

 

So I want to tell you about one of the members that we have here in our area. Her name is Nancy. She is the seminary teacher here in Cucuta. She has been in the hospital or clinc for about a month now because she has cancer. She is waiting to be taken to a different city where they have more things to help her. We have visted her serval times. I have not yet heard her complain once. The other day we visted her and asked how she was doing. She told us that she was doing well and then said that she felt so blessed . . . if I had cancer I do not think that I would be able to say that. She told us that right now her biggest concern was that nobody was teaching the seminary class and asked us to visit the bishop to talk to him about that. During her time in the hospital or clinic she and her daughter have given the missionaries 7 refrences and one is getting baptized this week and another has a baptismal date for the 16 of May.

 

I do not think I need to explain how special this person is. If she, being in her condition, feels blessed, is worrying about others, and doing missionary work. How much more should we, being healthy and capable, feel blessed, be serving others, and doing missionary work.

 

Some of my favorite scriptures are what Paul wrote to Timothy.

Telling him to keep the faith and fight the good fight. That is something that all of us should do.

Towards the end of his life Paul wrote something similar to Timothy but this time Paul was talking about himself and he told Timothy "I have keep the faith and I have faught the good fight."

How sad I would be if we reached the end of our life with regrets knowing that soon we must stand before God knowing that we had the potential to do so much more than we did. and that we were more like the servent who took the talent of his lord and buried it, instead of developing it into something greater. Wouldn't it feel so much better to leave this world know that we had fought the good fight. I image Paul used the word fight intentially becasue a fight or a battle is not easy. It is hard and we must do hard things if we want to be like god.

 

That's all for this week. The church is true. Love the Book of Mormon.

Love, Elder Rallison