Elder Jace Yeoman: La Luz de la Verdad

Como andan??

Hope everyone has had a great week and adjusting well to the cold! This time of year is always weird because I am getting into the hot weather, and all of you are getting to cold weather! But you guys have it better...I promise haha!

This week was a good week, I had a lot of awesome learning experiences in the office and out of the office as well! One morning, I was studying a talk that was the "talk of the week" on lds.org, and in this talk there was a quote by President Eyring that really touched me. It said "I have had prayers answered. Those answers were most clear when what I wanted was silenced by an overwhelming need to know what God wanted." I reflected a lot on that quote this week, and I read it everyday, and I have seen a huge difference in my daily prayers, and how much closer I feel to my Heavenly Father. Sometimes we fall into the routine of saying repetitive things in our prayers, asking for the same things, and talking about the same things, whether it has something to do with the will of the Lord or not. And I had noticed that about my prayers, and I knew I needed to change that! So since then, my prayers have become so much more sincere and I have truly felt a difference! Things very simple can go a long way! If we pray truly wanting to know what God wants, we will always be answered, in various forms, but the answer will come!

I was studying as well in Mosiah 2, and that is probably one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon, I would invite all of you to read it this week..as a family! King Benjamin is the man! There were a couple scriptures that really caught my attention in this chapter about service, and that we will always be indebted to Heavenly Father.

20 I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another—

21 I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending youbreath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants. (In spanish it says the word "useless" which is what really caught my attention.)

22 And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.

23 And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him.

24 And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast?

Now, I would like to explain my thoughts on this. We could give the Lord all the thanks in the world, we could serve him with all of our souls and everything we had, on a justice standpoint we would still be useless compared to all that He has given us. But that is the thing, thanks to the Atonement, and all that the Lord has given us we can be carried up by grace, then comes verse 22 which says that the thing that He really requires us to do is obey the commandments. I want to focus on the 2 great commandments, that we love Heavenly Father with all our heart, might, mind and soul, and we love our fellow men like unto ourselves. Heavenly Father gave us everything, he gave us His Son, and that is what He asks of us in turn? That we love Him and serve His children, and obey his commandments?

Well, let's think about that. That is nothing compared to what He did for us!

I am so incredibly thankful for my for my Heavenly Father, for providing me a Savior, who is His son, so that I may be able to live with Him again. This is far more personal than we could ever understand, but through service and diligence we can get a little taste!

I love you all and hope you all have a great week!

Elder Yeoman