Becoming Childlike

As 19 and 20 year old missionaries, we have to do the best we can to be dignified, mature representatives of Jesus Christ. We're teaching the most important thing in the world right? We teach a very serious message about how Jesus Christ's church has been restored to the earth. We must do everything we can to show that we should be taken seriously. Then something like this happens:

Yes that's my companion Elder Donohue in the Batman mask holding the sword. Is he going out to fight crime? I'm not too sure. But what I do know, is that sometimes its hard to suppress our childlike sides. Even at 19 years old, swords and Batman are pretty cool. But is that all bad? Jesus Christ taught in Matthew 18: 3-4: 

"3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Jesus Christ said it Himself! We must become as children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Its that important! When we are truly childlike, we will do anything we can to listen to the commandments of our Heavenly Father, just as a child listens to their parents.  Christ taught again, this time to the people in America, in 3 Nephi 11:
 
"37 And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and become as a little child, and be baptized in my name, or ye can in nowise receive these things.

38 And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God."

There it is again! When we humble ourselves, even as a child is humble, we become willing to take the simple steps of following Jesus Christ's example. We can all humble ourselves before God and be willing to listen to what He has for us, because He obviously knows a lot more than us. As we do as Jesus Christ says, and humble ourselves as a child, we can find more happiness in our lives and receive many more blessings that our Heavenly Father has in store for us. So I invite everyone to embrace those childlike feelings we all have, and turn to Heavenly Father for help.

So I can't get anything to work! I think its these computers at the library, so stay tuned for my next post!

Bike Ride!

So this P-day we decided to do something crazy and go on a bike ride instead of playing basketball. First off this is crazy because we all love basketball! How could we skip it?? And second off, I'm definitely not a bike rider! But when we heard about these awesome bike trails out by Old Hickory Lake, we had to hit them up.

But first off, we had to get some grub from everybody's favorite place, Wendy's! I enjoyed a nice chicken sandwich and a delicious Frosty, which may have been my first mistake!

So we get to the beginning of the trails, and we're just feeling awesome and excited, even with our dorky helmets on.

We're feeling awesome, we just had what I thought was a good meal, and we were going to something wholesome, healthy, and good for us.

By the time we get done with the trail, I'm dying! I'm totally out of shape, and as mentioned before, I'm not a bike rider. Plus eating Wendy's before over-exerting myself was just no good. So we barely get back, and I'm seeing spots and ready to throw up. Leaving me in a condition like this...

So why did I feel like this? Was it because it was good and healthy? Doubtful. Was it because I'm so fat? Quite possibly. But I'm pretty sure it was all the Wendy's!

We can relate this lovely story to our lives. Are we filling ourselves with things like bad media, profanity filled music, and anti-Word of Wisdom things? Although they might not seem too bad at first, just like my frosty, but they always end up hurting you. Even if we go to church and read our scriptures and do whats right and healthy, like a wholesome bike ride, we will always end up hurting ourselves.

When we fill our lives with only good things, like celery and yogurt, everything comes out better! There's no better substitute for junk than the Book of Mormon! The Book of Mormon can teach us so many things and tell us what we can do to avoid situations that end up making us feel like garbage.

So I invite everyone to cut the "junk"(old blog post! check it out!) out of your lives so that when we do these truly wholesome, enlightening things like reading the scriptures and going to church, they can really make a difference for the better! We can grow closer to our Heavenly Father and better notice His hand in our lives. I know that as we strive to constantly improve ourselves, we receive more blessings.