CHANGES!!! WHAAA! Questions too...

Hola a todos,

Entonces, p-day debía ser Sábado para mí, y no fue porque trabajé todo el día casi. Después Lunes debía ser lo, pero tampoco. Entonces, Presidente Herrera me dijo que debía tomar un p-day porque era justo.

So that´s what I did. I had P-day on Friday, I went with Elder Perry who´s here so he can feel his face again after a plant stabbed it. And we hiked the mountain next to the chapel and visited some ruins and hiked to the top. (mostly, it looked like it gradually climbed until it became a really tall mountain, so we just went back down eventually.)

The new missionaries are awesome! I got a lot of office stuff done. I´ve been stressed, I´ve become unstressed. I´ve gotten lazy, I´ve repented, I gave a really great talk about the Doctrine of Christ in Sacrament meeting, with the night before's notice, and I figured out what´d I´d talk about in the morning. But because the Spirit inspired me, it was an amazing talk. I claim only the vocal cords in that message.

Basically, I defined all of the Doctrine of Christ, Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. But I asked a lot of questions in the talk. Why do we partake of the sacrament each week? What purpose does it have? How does that relate to baptism? Why do we need to repent before we´re baptized? How do we repent? Why do we repent? What does faith have to do with repentance? Baptism? Enduring to the end? How can we endure to the end being clean? What blessings does baptism have for us? Why does all of this relate to our salvation? How does Christ and His Atonement play into each of these parts? Why would it be impossible without Jesus Christ?

I didn´t ask all of these questions in the talk, but if you answer them and study the answers, you´ll learn a lot more, and change yourself for the better. Christ and His Doctrine will become more important to you because you´ll understand them better. Ask around if you need help, but these questions will help you understand a lot more. I promise that God will bless you with the blessings you need now.

And, speaking of questions, to answer a couple that a friend sent me: (that´s right, if you send me questions, I can answer them! to you and sometimes to everyone! benjamin.fincher@myldsmail.net :D)

What book of scripture are you reading? How do you usually study?

Right now I´m in Mosiah and 1 Nephi. Around the middle of both chapters. I study so randomly, sometimes I pick a topic, other times I´ll just read from each physical book of scripture I have (Spanish, English, Preach My Gospel). But generally recently I´ve been reading in the Topical guide with the crazy study idea President Nelson gave in conference; read every verse in the topical guide under the headings with reference to Jesus Christ. I really enjoy that, I´m finding that verses I´ve read time after time as I´ve read the Book of Mormon will actually contain so much doctrine about Jesus Christ and His Gospel. For example, Ether 3:14, I bet you never thought or knew that people in way Old Testament times knew a certain name of our Savior. Other times I´ll use questions I found in a Liahona for studying better: ¨What doctrine do these verses teach? And what do I learn about that doctrine?¨ ¨Where and when have I seen this Gospel principle applied effectively?¨ ¨What do I learn about Heavenly Father and His plan for my happiness?¨ ¨What do I learn about Jesus Christ and His Atonement?¨ and a couple others I´ll do in Spanish: ¨¿Qué desea el Señor que yo aprendo de esto?¨ ¨¿Qué pensamientos y sentamientos inspirados recibo al leer?¨ ¨¿Hay algo en estas enseñanzas que me ayuda con un desafío actual de mi vida?¨ y ¨¿Qué aprendo que me ayudará a vivir día a día?¨ That´s a thorough summary. :P :D

Questions, they´re so important!

--

Hurrah for Israel!

~Elder Fincher