Happy New Year!!!! Yaya!!!! It is 2021 and you know what that means?????
You get an email from me!
Just like last week and the week before. Don't think that just because it is a new year I'm going to stop doing this! That would be preposterous!
I do have to say though, being in 2021 is kinda crazy. Yah it just started, but back in 2019 when I first started this haunted corn maze called the "mission" (I was going to say roller coaster but everyone says that, so I went with the Haunted Corn Maze cause Roman doesn't like those) I never thought that I would actually make it to 2021. I was sure that it didn't exist and I was just going to forever be a missionary and the end would never come.
Thankfully, the end hasn't come, and thankfully I have changed my attitude about it.
I've reflected a lot about change over the past week (new year, duh) and I have come up with some cool thoughts that I'm going to share with you all. Eventually. First though.......
This week! This week has been pretty normal. Office work. Made sure the mission didn't fall apart. One day President was like "I need you to write a report about all of our advertising efforts on Facebook." now guys I haven't done any writing my whole mission other than these emails which are farrrrr from professional or reporty in any way.
So thus began the three day adventure of trying to get this report perfected. Looking though all of our facebook ads, how many people they reached, making graphs to put all the data into one place.
And by the end, President said that I wrote very well and only made one grammatical edit. (How was I supposed to know you put a hyphen in the word Less-Active???????)
However, that was an awesome compliment to receive from President who has looked at and read and written thousands of reports in his business life. So basically I am a pro.
Someone give me a job when I get home....
Please???
Let's see.... More lessons in Tagalog! My language skills are getting pretty good I do have to say. I can now say "I don't speak Tagalog" In Tagalog. Which is a little bit of an oxymoron, but they always laugh when I say it!
Probably cause I sound like an oxymoron when I say it. Oh well.
I am getting quite good at sitting quietly. So that is good!
One lesson though I just really felt like I needed to bear my testimony. So at the end I cut in and simply bore my testimony to this person that God loved her and that He would listen to her as she prayed.
And the spirit was so strong and it was an amazing experience.
Sadly she has since used her agency to choose not to continue learning. But thus is life. It does not, however, discount the experience itself!
Also, I completed my New Year's resolution and I have now finished the Book of Mormon completely in Chinese Characters. In 5 months! If that is not the gift of tongues, I don't know what is. So grateful for God and helping me learn this language. I learned more characters in those 5 months than I did in 5 years of Chinese class. Just goes to show how merciful God is.
And I guess cause I can't really think of anything else to say about my week because it was mostly just a bunch of busy work that I don't want to put in this email. We go to the subject of new years resolutions!
So what are yours? Have you thought about them yet? Are you actually going to go through with them? Are you a meaningful specific? Or are you a wandering generality?
Here's my thoughts.
They are all new thoughts as I have pondered this whole new year thing.
First to 2020. I am incredibly grateful for what I have learned this year. More has been shoved into this year than any other year in my life.
The other day as we were going out my companion said in his prayer that he was grateful for 2020. And when he said that it kinda felt like I'd just gotten whacked in the face by a frying pan.
So afterwards I was like "I need to pray too before we leave"
So I just gave a prayer of gratitude for 2020 and it was an amazing experience. I highly recommend it! We have so much to be grateful for! Think of everything we've learned from this time! Isn't it amazing? And if you aren't grateful... Change. Now those aren't my words but they are the words of the chosen servants of God from General Conference (See Talks by President Nelson and Elder Bednar if you don't believe me (even if you do you should probably read them again anyways))
So 2020 went out with a bang!
Then on January 1st I got up and started my workout, and it just so happened that the first general conference talk I listened to was "Let God Prevail" by President Nelson. And as I pondered I realized that is the best 2021 resolution. It is to Let God prevail in your life. Change what needs to be changed and do what needs to be done.
Now that is a HUGEEE Goal. Like it's gonna be huuuge. That kinda huuuuuuuuuge. (if you know, you know)
So that is why New Years is not the time to make changes. Why is it that so many people only focus on change during a new year? Why is that? Shouldn't a new day be good enough? Why should we wait a whole year to try to change, when in one year we could try to change 365 times? Wouldn't that be 365% more effective? (It would actually be like 10 bajilion times more effective, but that sounds less uniform and mathy you know? 1=1 I guess)
Now before you start going off on 'well that is all well and good, but that is just your opinion Elder Baird" it's not. It's God's opinion.
Moses 2:14 says
"And I, God, said: Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years"
The days and the season and the years are all signs for us! Signs of what? Signs of change! Every new day can be a 'New Year'! We can make resolutions every day! How amazing is that!!!! The thought just fills me with joy! We don't have to stay the same for a whole year! Because of the mercy and grace of God we can change! We can become more like Jesus. Day by day we can draw closer to him. And every time we mess up we just start again!
"That does sound hard though.... That is a lot of work! I don't know if I could do that every day..." Don't fear worried reader! God already has provided a way for you to receive power to change. Can you guess what it is? It's a lot more regular than a year... In face we do this 52 times in a year!
That's right!
The sacrament. The sacrament is a time for us to reflect on the past weeks efforts to change and work on our daily resolutions. And then it is a time for us to ask for AND receive God's power to do it the next week. To be forgiven for all the times you messed up the week prior, and take your fresh new start on a new week.
God is all about try try again. But it's not try until you burn our. It's try, and try, and I will give you power so you can try again. Because without him and without the infinite atonement of His Son Jesus Christ (atonement literally meaning to change (semantics people *clap clap*)) we have the opportunity, if we take it, to change.
And God wants us to change. And improve. Every day.
Why?
Because that is where Joy comes from. Has anyone ever found joy in making a New Year's resolution to do something and never doing it? Nope. But have people found joy in striving every day to complete their daily resolutions and knowing that if they don't complete it today they can do it the next day because of the mercy of God? Pardon the run on sentence, but YES!!!! And if you don't believe me then you haven't tried it.
God doesn't lie. He is unable to. And so when he promises you joy he means it. Take a look at Mosiah 2:41 if you want some happiness.
And so while yes this new year time is a great time to look at the year behind us and the year ahead. Just remember that the daily acts matter a lot more than the yearly ones do. 365 times more to be not precise.
Realizing this has brought a new found sense of.... Something... To my life. I don't really know what it is, maybe just realization? Understanding? But I know that it is true.
And I am so grateful that the spirit was able to teach me this. Because it is truly amazing. The Atonement is daily. Even hourly and secondly in application. In fact we can't really do anything without it. Life would be meaningless without it. There would be no Joy. No anything. And that is why it is an infinite atonement. It is infinite in reach, scope, magnitude, effectiveness, and perfectness. There is nothing that Jesus can not help you fix. You just have to be willing to turn to him.
So this year I invite you to make your daily resolution something simple. As simple as three words, spoken from God though his prophet.
Let God Prevail.
I know that as we work on this day, his power will flow into our lives. More than we ever have experienced. And we will be able to resist temptation. And we will be able to have the Companionship of the Holy Ghost. A member of the Godhead. With us.
I cannot think of anything truly more remarkable than this. I am so grateful for this gospel and the truths that I have learned, and am continuing to learn every day.
I hope you all have a great year! And even more. I hope that you have a great day :)
Although if you've got any super dope new year resolutions you should totally let me know!
(email begging never gets old)
Elder Baird
Something about socks
Do your Come Follow Me! This week's lesson was awesome! More on that next week hopefully!!!!!!
Pictures!!!!!
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