Elder Maelstrom

Hello My Dear Best Family,

This week has been amazing. One important thing to be noted: My P-day on the week of General conference will be on Friday not on Saturday. So don't wait till Saturday to send me emails.

To explain the title of my email, I was thinking about the ocean one day, and I was thinking of a maelstrom, which is like a whirlpool. Anyway I thought it sounded a little bit like Meldrum. So now I sometimes call Elder Meldrum "Elder Maelstrom", and he said that he thinks that would be a cool last name to have.

Today I would like to talk about having 100% responsibility. I have started working on this along with accountability, due to a BYU talk I watched by Elder Lynn G. Robbins. He talked about how we need to be responsible even when it was not us that caused the problem. Taking 100% responsibility means not saying it's not my fault, even when it may not be your fault.

A good example of this is shown in a story given in Lynn G. Robins talk. He told a story about a wife and her husband who were still together but weren't really talking because the wife was waiting for the husband to apologize. She felt like she needed to say a prayer because she did not feel comfortable with the silence that was going on between them. So she prayed that her husband would realize his mistake and would apologize to her. It was then that she got a prompting to apologize to him, but she said "It's not my fault." What she didn't realize is that she was still responsible because she needed to forgive him, so she apologized and forgave her husband, and then things continued to be good again.

You can read the talk here. I invite you all to watch it.

I know that as we take responsibility for our actions, we will be happy with ourselves because we are being honest. Honesty even if it is admitting something wrong you did is still very important. It may not always bring the best outcome, but it will be better because you did not lie. I know that the longer that we hide something the guiltier we feel for it. God wants us to be happy and to improve. I know that as we follow that commandments that we have been given we will most definitely improve. I know that obedience brings blessings and it brings peace. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Saturday 09/09/2017

Elder Arndt, Elder Meldrum, Elder Fleming, and I played a really cool new game. It is called "Break the Safe." It is a game where everyone works together to beat the clock. Anyway, the goal of the game is to find all the keys that are hidden under traps to break into the safe without being caught. Because there is a guard and a watch dog going around the board when you play and you are caught if you are in their line of sight. So that was fun.

Sunday 09/10/2017

We went to regional conference today. a few people spoke including Christina B. Franco, Second Counselor in the General Primary Presidency, Juan A. Uceda of the seventy, and Elder Gary E. Stevenson.

Sister Franco gave us a list of ways we can be happy in every situation:

1. Understand that we have a Father in Heaven and a Savior that understands us.
2. Know that keeping the commandments keeps us happy.
3. We need to have gratitude in our lives.
4. Service brings joy into our lives.

Elder Uceda's talk was really good. He talked about mighty prayer. He said, "When we offer a mighty prayer we have a moment in the Heavens."

Elder Stevenson's talk was also really good. He talked about humility, obedience, and virtue. He said, "What you choose to think and do is a strong example of virtue." He suggested to us replacing screen time with reading the scriptures which will actually be rather hard here, but I am definitely going to start reading more.

Monday 09/11/2017

I went on an exchange with Elder Schwendiman today. It was super good. We talked with Josefine about Tithing and we basically talked about the blessings of Tithing and how it has helped us.

Tuesday 09/12/2017

Zone meeting was super good today. We talked about praying by the spirit, which got me thinking about how I can say more sincere prayers, and then the devotional was about saying more sincere prayers, which was fantastic.

Wednesday 09/13/2017

We talked with Melizah today who we have not had a lesson with in like two weeks. So we caught up on how she was doing. She had missed our lesson last week because she was in Mexico. She has been reading her scriptures, but not daily, so we invited her to do that and she said she would.

Thursday 09/14/2017

Today we talked with Hollie. This was really good. We talked about the importance of temples and the family. We made short and long term goals with her. We made a short term goal of getting her siblings in touch with the missionaries and a long term goal of having her family be sealed in the temple. That's quite a stretch, but she seemed ready and willing to start.

Friday 09/15/2017

Today we spent the whole day chatting, but it was hard because the queue has been dead, meaning chats have been scarce and they go by real fast since there are 23 of us here at the referral center now. But we did get some. They weren't very friendly though.

Love,

Elder Stevenson