This ward is on fire right now. It was been so cool to see the change in tone around here. Everything is missionary work focused and people are excited about the work. We had so many people at church yesterday and our Gospel Principle class (that we teach) was filled. The Lord has truly poured out His spirit upon us in this ward and ideas are flowing!! It is an exciting time to be in Shawnee. The ward is great and they are working their tails off. We are seeing so many families being prepared. We found a couple more this week through the members that will be solid. This weekend we are putting on a "Movie Night" where people of the ward and community can come to the church and watch the movie "17 Miracles". We also will be having a baptism before the movie night probably. It will be a great opportunity to allow people to feel of God's love and witness the miracles that were apart of the "marvelous work and wonder" which He brought forth through the Restoration of the Gospel in the 1800's. We're pumped.
I have been thinking so much about agency and desire recently. I have been obsessed with it actually. Life really is simple because we can make it simple if we want. It really is beautiful because we can make it beautiful if we want!! "All things are given them which are expedient unto man" (2 Nephi 2:27) and we can choose to act on our circumstances or be acted upon by our circumstances. We will all go through refining processes but not everyone will be refined in the process. This quote explains why and is really all I want to say this week because it sums everything up. Read this quote and give it some thought. It is brilliant.
"I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I posses tremendous power to make a life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or deescalated, and a person humanized or dehumanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become who they are capable of becoming." --Goethe--
We will all face opposition, that is a given, so it doesn't really matter what we go through, but rather how we will choose to go through it. Our reactions are the difference between happiness and sadness. Will we act and "choose liberty and eternal life through the Great Mediator" or be acted upon and choose "captivity and death"? There are really only two choices. Eternal life is simply a sum total of our daily righteous decisions to follow Christ. "We call the actions of our righteously focused desires to follow the Savior, faith". Thus we have the choice to believe or disbelieve, to be happy or unhappy, to progress and become or to "dam" ourselves and live below our potential. As for me, I would much rather hope for a life after death that is eternal, where I can rest from all my present cares and be reunited with the ones I love the most... and if I choose to have faith in Jesus Christ, I can. Life is really that simple. We just need to be reminded once in awhile :)
Think about it!! There are miracles going on all around us!! Life is so awesome!! It can be hard sometimes and its natural to be down once in awhile, but don't stay there!! Get back up and keep your eyes on the Savior and move forward with a vision of what you can become. Have faith in Him who loves you unconditionally and perfectly. I testify as a witness that we can be happy in hard times. We can have peace in stressful matters and we can have answers if we will but just believe in Him and follow His example.
Love you all.
Elder Dallin Cutler
I grabbed elder watkins love handle right at the perfect time. CLASSIC picture. hahaha This was last night. the family on the right is awesome. Alexis and Cameron and their two kids. We taught them last night for the first time.
selfie sunday photo bombing
this was a couple of seconds ago
do i look hawt?
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