| CHAPTER 36: Gateway YSA/ Downtown Edmonton WEATHER: -20 |
ZONE CONFERENCE:
We had ZOCO this week! I got to see my mom (Sis. Ballard) and some of my old comps! Sis. Ashby and Sis. Monson were finally reunited!!! ZOCO was good except when the APs were giving their training we had to do role plays. They picked two people from each zone to go up in front of everyone to teach president and sister matheson about baptism and extend a baptismal invite. (It was a competition between zones to see who could do it best) I thought theres no way they will pick me.... but boy was I wrong. So of course I get picked to go up and wow that was the most stressful thing of my life. Me and my old comp Sis. Dent nailed it though and im just glad its over. #meandtheAPsbebeefingnow #districtunitygone!
HIGHLIGHTS:
♡ Passed our on date friend off to the elders #anotheronebitesthedust
♡ Some guy i talked to at the mall for 30 minutes gave me some dinosaur fossils
♡ Got invited to Banff #anothertripsecured
♡ We got to hold cute baby bunnies and one of them peed on Sister Stucki They also just had bunnies everywhere! There was one even living in their bathroom!
♡ Held a spa morning for the people in my quad
♡ Sister Stucki got bashed for the first time! #proudmommoment #didnotgowell #dontworryisavedher
♡ Taught and got bashed by two Muslims this week
♡ One of our members collects rubber ducks and gave us one
♡ Bye Bye Celestial TIWI... we had to call in and get our TIWI fixed and your girl knows nothing about cars so the phone call was way longer than it needed to be (at the end of the phone call he said that he's glad I was learning new things out on my mission)
♡ Got hammered at basketball night. (The rule is girls can only guard girls and guys can only guard guys but when your the only girl that actually plays ball the guys dont like that rule and wow I got hammered)
SPIRITUAL THOUGHT:
Ive been doing Book of Mormon reads with our RC Ronak. Every week we read a couple chapters and give our insights. That however got changed because I give way to many insights and only got to give insights on one of the chapters we read this week because i ran out of time haha. But I thought I would share my insights with you all!
MOSIAH CHAPTER 3: 3
The phrase "I am come to declare unto you the glad tidings of great joy." It is also used in the story of Jesus Christ's birth when the angels appear to the shepherds. (Luke 2:10-11)
In this year's Christmas devotional President Oaks gave a talk centered on the following saying.
"The first announcement was to the shepherds in the hills by Bethlehem. An angel and a heavenly choir proclaimed “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people … a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10–11). The shepherds were probably chosen to receive these good tidings because they were meek and humble. Thus, they were uniquely receptive to the message of heaven, which they verified by visiting the newborn. Then, the scripture reports, they “made known abroad the saying which was told to them concerning this child” (Luke 2:17)."
The term glad tidings is used to portray a hopeful or glad message. The birth and ministry of Jesus Christ was what many found to be a hopeful message. I like the choice of words they felt to use. Out of all the sayings they could have used, out of all the descriptive words used to depict their message they used the words Hope, and Joy. Hope and Joy. That's it. Nothing more. But for me that sums up the entirety of this church. For me it sums up why I even believe what I believe and why I even do what I do. This church is a church of Hope and a Church of Joy. Elder Patrick Kearon gave a talk on the topic or Joy in October 2024 titled "Welcome to the Church of Joy" He states:
"Because of the loving plan of our Heavenly Father for each of His children, and because of the redeeming life and mission of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, we can—and should—be the most joyful people on earth! Even as the storms of life in an often-troubled world pound upon us, we can cultivate a growing and abiding sense of joy and inner peace because of our hope in Christ and our understanding of our own place in the beautiful plan of happiness." (Highly recommend the talk 10/10 if you haven't heard it before.) To conclude his talk he states:
"At the start of my journey of faith, joy in Jesus Christ was my first great discovery, and it changed my world. If you have yet to discover this joy, embark on its quest. This is an invitation to receive the Saviour’s gift of peace, light, and joy—to revel in it, to wonder at it, and to rejoice in it every Sabbath.
Ammon in the Book of Mormon expresses the feelings of my heart when he says:
“Now do we have no reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, there never were [a people] that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the world began; yea, and my joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God; for he has all power, all wisdom, and all understanding; he comprehendeth all things, and he is a merciful Being, even unto salvation, to those who will repent and believe on his name. “Now if this is boasting, even so will I boast; for this is my life and my light, … my joy, and my great thanksgiving.” Welcome to the church of joy! In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."
I think oftentimes in our church we hear the word receive it. And for me, throughout most of my life I often wondered how I was supposed to do that. For example, we tell people all the time to receive Christ's grace, to use his atonement, to receive the power that comes from it... but how do we do that? We are also told at baptism when revieving the gift of the holy ghost: "I say unto you, recieve the holy ghost". How do you do that? Now we have Elder Kearon telling us to recieve peace, Love, and light. How am i suppossed to do that? So now when we bring it all back to the beginning with my original thought of "glad tidings of great joy", we are told this church has this message of Hope and Joy but now we are told that we have to seek it. So now my thoughts take me to the shepereds. They were told of this message of Hope and Joy yet they had to humble themselves and seek out Jesus. They had to find him. Seek him. Look for him. So ultimately (i dont even know if this is making sense if you're still with me) but the way we receive these things is to find Jesus. To seek him. To look for him. (Fire talk definelty gives it a listen- "Seek, and Ye Shall Find" By Elder Craig C. Christensen). As we Seek Jesus we will find and recieve the promises in his church. As we seek humbly we ourselves can experience "glad tidings of great joy".
This is a bit of what I send him this week but I hope you all can get something out of it as well! This is the church of Hope and Joy as we seek Jesus Christ and his church we will find what many spend their whole life searching for! "Seek and Ye Shall Find". Choose now to experience the joy and hope that comes from being a member of his church and living by his gospel principles.
Sorry for the long thought! I love and miss you all! Have an amazing week!
Sis. Monson
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