The Importance of Returning

My dear family,

This week has been adventurous. A lot has happened and at the same time almost nothing at all. Today I wanted to talk about a very special topic. I have been studying about "The Prodigal Son" parable. This is a super good story. So to put "The Prodigal Son" parable in short, a son asks his father for what belongs to him (through inheritance), then he leaves and spends it all in riotous living and pays the price for it. After realizing what he has done, he comes back to his father expecting to become his father's servant, and the father welcomes him with open arms, and throws him a party. His older brother finds out and is displeased and does not participate. For the full parable you can go to Luke 15:11-32. Or watch the video here.

There are a lot of elements to this story that I really liked and noticed. One of them being the older brother. After the youngest brother returns the older brother is jealous and I noticed maybe a bit prideful, because he says, "Never at any time had I transgressed against your commandments." I learned a principle a while ago and that was that if he was humble he would not need to point out the things that he has done. We are judged based on our actions, the father knew what each son had done. After the father councils with the older brother he says that it was mete that this party should happen for his younger brother. I looked at the foot notes for the word mete and it said necessary. So it was necessary that his Younger brother should have the party because after all that the younger son went through he really needed love. This party was a sign of the fathers love for his son.

I compared this story to the gospel and it made me think of the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 18 that says, "And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!" If our joy is great when we bring others unto God, how great do you think God's joy is when we bring His children back to him? Especially ourselves after we have repented. I think that His joy would be immeasurable. When we repent it shows that we are willing to listen to what God has to tell us.

I know that we can all be tools in the hands of God as He hastens His work. I know that as we repent we are returning back to God and humbling ourselves. I know that as we humble ourselves we can become more like Christ and ultimately return to live with our Father in Heaven at the last day. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I invite you to read The parable of the prodigal son and ponder over the things said in it, and think of how it can apply to you specifically.

The latest picture of the whole mission

There were a lot of good things that happened this week, and here are some of the best.

• We talked with Victoria this week and something super cool happened. Victoria found out that the Book of Mormon is true. This is what she said, "Basically I was listening to music before I went into the shower. Only one song played then it stopped. I felt this... force come over me. I fell to my knees and prayed (yes in the shower because that's totally normal) and prayed hard asking over and over if the Book of Mormon was true. I had no sense of time, but after a while I felt that sort of warm fuzzy feeling. I know it is, it's true."
• We had zone conference on Thursday it was super good. We talked all about the questions that are in Alma 5. We were invited to read Alma 5 and pick some questions that related to us and be prepared to talk about it at zone conference. So it was super cool to hear what questions stuck out to people, and what their thoughts were about it. During Zone conference it was announced that four people would be leaving and those were Sister Malouf, Sister Lesue, Elder Stewart and Elder Fleming. All of those people have been good friends during this mission. Sister Malouf has already gone home, while sister Lesue, Elder Stewart and Elder Fleming will all go home in about two weeks.
• We had two really good member dinners this week. On Wednesday some of the members took us to Pizza Pie Cafe which was super awesome and then on Thursday another member took us to El Pollo Loco which was really interesting. Interesting in the sense that It was not what I was expecting. Of course I had chicken, but they also told me that I could have sides and that was interesting because they had sides like Mac and cheese. Anyway it was all good.

Well I hope that you all have a good rest of your weekend and a good upcoming week. I love each and every one of you.

Love,

Elder Stevenson