Love, love, love

November 19, 2017

San Fernando, La Union

Sister Ellsworth

I realize this is a reoccurring theme for my spiritual self-discoveries so I apologize for the repetitiveness of this topic, but let's talk about love again. I was listening to an amazing talk by President Euchtdorf about the subject and it just connected so well to so many thoughts and feelings I have been having. One of my favorite lines from the talk was about how we the first and great commandment is to love God. But whether we love God or not does not change his power and glory. The concept of loving our Heavenly Father is to help us, not Him. I used to think that the purpose of the commandments was to prevent ourselves and prevent others from getting hurt. Though this is also a factor, I know now that the more we consider our love for God, the easier it is to keep the commandments. When we keep the commandments in a "bite the bullet" manner we aren't benefiting from is nearly as much as we could. At the beginning of my mission I had a hard time keeping track of the many obedience rules. As my love for the people, my mission president, my companion and of course God grew, it lead me to now keep these mission "commandments" much more happily and freely.

Spiritual personal enlightenment aside, let's talk about our wonderful investigators. Romelyn consistently brings up her baptismal date. She readily accepted to keep the Word of Wisdom and every time we see her she seems so happy to see us. And then we taught her the Law of Chastity. We were lead to believe she was married. It turns out she isn't and has two children. This was hard news for Sister Ellsworth to hear because this news very well postpones her baptism by at least a few months. I have faith that it will work out though.

Much Love,
Sister Jensen