The Black Box

Wassup wassup everyone! This week was pretty much the same old same old. We have been doing a lot of preparing for a meeting that we have on Tuesday that we will be teaching and its 3 hours so we have been doing A LOT of preparing for that. We got out and taught some people and didn't have any crazy stories like Dixon's about the gun in his face but I don't really want that to happen! The members here are so awesome! The Branch President up here is probably the most Christ-Like guys I've ever met in my entire life! He loves everyone and he never misses an opportunity to tell us that. 
This week Elder Riddle and I taught the youth for their mutual activity. Our youth are EXTREMELY immature. So they really didn't expect what was coming. They came in and sat down and were messin around like usual and once all of the youth got in the room and sat down we made them get up and do some push-ups and sit-ups and jumping jacks and they were complaining about it, they expected us to teach them how to be a missionary. Well what they didn't know is that we exercise every morning for 30 minutes. After that we proceeded to be very bold with them and stern. We were there to show them that being a missionary and growing up in general requires three things 1-Respect. 2-Sacrifice. 3-Maturity. All of those things are part of one thing. That thing is a question that we should allow to drive our lives. "How much do you/I love the Lord?" That was what we taught them. We as well needed to hear that. Often times i've noticed that we don't do what the Lord wants us to do and we never think very deeply about that but what we are doing when we want to do our own thing instead of sacrificing what we want for what the Lord wants we immediately disqualify ourselves from being able to tell the Lord that we love him. No one will stop you from saying it but when you say that and you are willfully disobedient to the Lords commandments you are showing the Lord that you love him with your voice but your actions are proof that you are mocking God. As we taught the youth with this kind of mindset i think that they really took it as a reality check and i think that we all should as well. When we kneel down to pray at night we should make sure before we tell the Lord that we love him, we better make sure that we are doing as the Savior directs in the book of John "If ye love me keep my commandments."  Whenever we are faced with a decision in which we have to decide between something we want and something the Lord wants we should let that question echo in our minds... "How much do i love the Lord?" 
I love you all and i hope that this may help you in whatever way you will allow it. Be obedient and the Lord will give you what you deserve.
-Elder Rogers