I am learning so much, just about the gospel, and about how important things are. As you start teaching and seeing everyone's problems, from members in the ward to less active people and investigators, and as we seek to help all these struggling people, you start to see where all their problems come from. The commandments are there for a reason, and I am realizing that like I never have before.
God has given us the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the power to work miracles in his name, and how to grow, love, have fantastic families, and live with our Heavenly father again, but it is all taken so casually, and I was one of the worst ones. People have strong testimonies, but it all starts with not coming to church, not reading, and not praying. You miss a few days, get out of habit, miss a few more, and the church starts becoming less and less important. You stop craving that love and peace, or worse yet, forget it, and being a member of the church fades into the background of your life. Pretty soon, everything seems easy to let slide.
We need to make being a member of Christ's only true church the thing that defines us, that drives us, the greatest and most important thing in our lives. Yea, we need to work, have families, and we have friends and live life like a normal human, but we need to make keeping the all the commandments a part of us.
I had no idea how much the commandments are there to protect us! God knows all the devil's tricks, and there really is a reason for each one.
It is so easy to slip away, to go back to old habbits, to get lazier and lazier. Sweet moses, we are so flawed. I used to always think the Nephites were crazy loosers for always falling away so fast after being saved by miracles, but we do the same thing! We just don't let ourselves realize we do, or how far we have actually gotten. You think you got things figured out, you think you are still a good guy, a good Mormon, right? But as time goes on and life moves, you find yourself in a place you would have sworn, when you were twelve and a bright, happy deacon, that you would never get close to. But that is exactly how satan works at you, bit by bit, getting you to accept more and more of the world and further from Christ without you even noticing, making you think everything is still alright, that "I only don't follow the commandments that aren't a big deal". But pretty soon, every commandments isn't a big deal. That is why it is so dangerous, why we must never let our guard down. The watch is long, and at times wearing, but if we pray and hold fast, and follow with exactness, God will give us strength not only not to sleep or rest, but to rejoice in it and love it.
I used to always think that The parable of the Wise man with the house on rock and the foolish man with the house on sand was about two different types of people, a member and a nonmember. The Member had the foundation and was solid in life, the foolish man was washed down to hell and whatnot cause he didn't have the gospel. But I was wrong.
They are both members. They both already have a testimony of the gospel, their houses. They both place their testimonies on two different kinds of ground. The wise man holds his testimony with a sure foundation of reading the scriptures, praying daily, going to church and following all the other commandments. The foolish man holds his testimony on sand, he may go to church, maybe even often, but doesn't secure it with the rock that the wise man has. When the temptations of satan, the persecutions and the laziness beat on their testimonies like wind, rain, hail, and floods, the wise man still has a strong testimony, ever firm in faith in Christ and the Church. The foolish guy has his testimony washed away, lost and forgotten about. The reason we have been hearing "pray and read the scriptures" since we could understand English is because it is actually so important.
We all have doubts and weaknesses, and especially in the mission field, when people are calling you cultists, trying to say you are liars, that we don't actually know the truth, you start to wonder if you have actually felt the spirit, and if you actually can say without doubt that Joseph smith was a prophet and that this is Christ's one true church. But every day, as I pray to know the truth, and I read my scriptures with actual effort, I feel the spirit testify that the words I read are true so that I can say, without a doubt, Joseph Smith was a prophet called of God, we have the true authority of Christ; the Priesthood. God gives direct revelation and guidance to his church through the modern day prophet, Thomas Monson, and that the book of Mormon is a word of God. And I would not only die on this testimony, I would live for it, and I literally pray to God every day that I will never lose it. I actually understand a bit of what the old prophets said, that they were filled with joy more than they could hold for knowing these things, and how great and loving our God really is. I love all you guys, and I only wish you guys could know all these things too, and that I could have know them sooner myself.
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