July 17, 2016 - Chinese Proverb

Not too much happened this week so I thought I could just share what has been on my mind.

In my time as a missionary I have memorized this ancient proverb by Chinese philosopher Mencius. Mencius is the most famous Confucian after Confucius himself. I say it to myself as I ride my bike. The proverb basically translates like this.

"If heaven wanted to give a man a mission it would first grind down his mind. It would exhaust his body. It would allow him to starve. It would deprive him of worldly things and constantly put obstacles in his way. Only by doing this would he be fit for the task at hand. "

It is more beautiful in Chinese and it reminds me of what all missionaries are trying to do. We don't spread the gospel to make lives easier. We spread the gospel to teach people to "choose the harder right rather than the easy wrong." We all have trials. We need to allow those trials to make us better, to wear us down so that we can be made into something better. If we let our trials bring us down and then submit to them then Satan has won. We need to pick ourselves up and fight to get past the trials that come our way. If we stay low, we will not become the people our Heavenly Father created us to be.

In Ether 12:27 it says, "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

Question: What do you do to find people to teach?

We go to places with lots of people like the library, museum, parks, shopping malls and talk with everyone as we go. But it is sad to say that people just don't care about religion anymore. "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge and where is the knowledge we have lost in information." That is my feeling most of the time when I talk to people. 

I love you all and I hope that we can all stay on the old ship Zion.

p.s. Last week I went and got my erhu fixed and I was in heaven. It now sounds so good!