"Give said the little stream"

One of the hardest things that i am learning as a missionary is selfless service. Charity is defined as the pure love of Christ and each day I am trying to be more like Jesus so that I am able to teach his gospel in the manner in which he would be pleased but it’s hard not to think with singleness of mind. Thoughts such as, what I want, what’s in it for me? Make it almost impossible to have charity.

I remember when I was at home in sacrament meeting if we would sing the hymn “have I done any good?” my little brother David would often turn to me and mouth the words  have you done any good in the world today ?which would often get me thinking how I had spent my time in the last week "had I cheered up the sad or made someone feel glad? " "If not I had failed indeed.”
Mosiah 2:17 says: “And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”

One of my mum’s favorite sayings growing up was “service begins at home” .I believe what she was trying to teach us was to start small by serving our biological siblings before we could reach such climbs as serving our siblings in the gospel or even our brothers and sisters in the human race .(exclaims sister Meister dramatically)…lol

As most hard and useful lessons I have learned as I child I learned this particular lesson in a sneaky cunningly planned family home evening. On this particular Monday many years ago my mother gathered all 5 of us in the family room and handed us each a letter that explained that there was a family in the ward who was having trouble keeping their house clean and they were in dire need of some help .So with the wilting spirit of compassion we all piled into the car and drove around for about 15 minutes all scared stiff as to what horrid task we had been enlisted to serve in .finally we reached our destination ...HOME what?

At this time mum passed us all another letter with one of our siblings name in it and request to clean and or tidy their room. Painfully and completely complacently we all set about doing our tasks. And when we were all finished we went out and got ice cream.
finally it came time to go to bed (I think that I was doing early morning seminary at this time and was generally tired all the time).As I walked into my room I saw everything in its place and my bed made lovingly so that I was able to just slip in and sleep .

I didn’t really realize until that moment that when we are called to serve in any capacity when we rise to that calling heavenly father will take care of those things that we would like to attend too that we are rendered unable to .So I guess it’s the same with missionary work we are promised that if we serve with all our hearts might mind and strength heavenly father we look after our families and other people we love and care about he will also take care of us temporally.
So with that in mind dearest readers I pose this question “have you done any good in the world today?”

Cemented

Lately I have been thinking a lot about Jesus Christ visiting the Americas and how it cemented all of the teachings of the prophets in the book of Mormon .When I was preparing my papers to serve a mission I was really keen to serve the lord and was trying to finish the book of Mormon before I finished my papers .It was really hard especially because at the time I had 2 jobs because I was trying to be financially ready to serve a mission as well .I remember being almost at the end in 3rd Nephi  and I was sitting on the couch in my chapel in Australia waiting for  an interview with my bishop to finalize my papers . I was reading and then I looked up to see what was in front of me . I saw this picture and just like the Nephites had witness of The savior I felt the spirit whisper of his reality and the truthfulness of the prophets in the book of Mormon. I always believed that the book of Mormon was true but at that very moment I had my own personal witness that the book of Mormon was true .I feel amazingly blessed for that dense and heavy reality whenever I serve at the historical sites of the church .it builds my testimony everyday as I get to see with my own eyes the places and the methods in which the restoration of the lords church. I am so glad that I know. That I no longer just believe that like the Nephites I have seen for myself and I encourage everyone to find out for themselves as well .

proud to humble ,weak to strong

I find that even though that I have only been out for a little while on my mission, I am changing. I am not reaching new climbs but  I find that I am revisiting old ones and remembering things from when I was a little girl , recognizing the importance of simplicity in the doctrines of Jesus Christ  and in the constant development of my testimony in the building of the foundations of the missionary that the lord wants me to become. I guess it reminds me of a scripture in Mosiah 3:19


" For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."


I find sometimes that it is easy to feel the exact opposite .stubborn ,proud impatient hateful and contentious .I really feel this sometime especially when I am trying really hard to follow the example of Jesus Christ but I know that I have can  put off the natural man through the strength that the atonement provided for me .
 this scripture is so inspirational to me in (Ether 12:27).


“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”


I love this because I know that if I willingly submit unto the lord and centre my life and purpose to following him back to my heavenly father, he will make me stronger and stronger so that one day I will be worthy to stand in his presents being able to say that I have done my best  .

The Happy Prince

My Dad is my hero ,when I was a little girl he always found ways to teach me the gospel in way that I would be able to understand. I love to hear how from an early age he was prepared to hear the message of Jesus Christ and his restored gospel. When my Dad was a little boy he wasn’t a member of our church he lived in New Zealand and spent a lot of time staying at his grandparents house. His grandparents were also not Mormon but had a very strong belief in heavenly father and Jesus Christ and prayed regularly. When my dad used to stay with them he used to listen to the story of "The Happy Prince” and even as a small child it touched him so deeply that it caused him to cry every time that he heard it. So I have been thinking about my family a lot since I have started my mission because I am going to be finding people just like my young parents. I am not sure if this is the exact version but here it is!

The Happy Prince

“One cold night a little swallow flew over the city where a beautiful statue stood. The swallow’s friends had gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had not because he was in love with the most beautiful reed. The other swallows had told him that his love was ridiculous because the reed had no money and too many relations, and she was always flirting with the wind.

While he was flying he saw the statue. It was covered by thin leaves of fine gold; for eyes he had two sapphires and a large red ruby glowed on his sword. When the prince whom the statue was made after he died he did not know what tears were - he lived in a palace where sorrow was not allowed. The court used to call him the Happy Prince, and when he died the Town Councilors decided to build the statue, which was set up so high that he could see everything in the city.

The swallow decided to sleep on the statue’s feet, but just when he was putting his head under his wings, he felt a drop of water, and then another. When he looked up he realized that the Happy Prince was crying because he could see the misery and ugliness of his own city. So the Happy Prince asked the swallow to be his messenger. Through a small window the Happy Prince could see a very poor seamstress who was embroidering passion flowers on a satin gown, and he could also see her ill boy. They had no food to eat, so the Happy Prince told the swallow to take out the ruby from his sword and give it to them.

The following night the Happy Prince saw a man in a cold garret trying out to finish a play, but he was too cold to write, so the Happy Prince asked the swallow to take out a sapphire from his eyes and give it to him in order to buy wood. The following day, he saw a match-girl whose matches had fallen in the gutter, whose father would hit her if she did not bring home some money. In order to help her, the Happy Prince asked the swallow to pluck the sapphire from his other eye to give to the girl. As a result of this action he became blind and the swallow had to fly over the city in order to tell him what he had seen. He saw two children crying of hunger and a lot of poverty, so the Happy Prince decided to take out all the golden leaves so as to give them to the poor children.

At last the swallow realised that he would die because of the cold winter, and he decided to stay with the Happy Prince. The Prince asked the swallow to kiss his lips as he loved him, and once the swallow did so he fell down at the Prince's feet. At that moment a crack sounded inside the statue as the Prince's heart broke.
Early the next morning, the Mayor saw the statue but, as it was not beautiful, he decided it was no longer useful, so he decided to pull it down. The statue was melted in a furnace and reused. The broken lead heart, however, did not melt, and so it was thrown away on a dust-heap alongside the dead swallow, the Prince's final friend.

However, an angel charged by God to find "the two most precious things in the city" returned with the dead bird and the Prince's broken heart. God approved of the angel's choice, and decreed that both the swallow and the Prince would live happily in His presence forever.”

The end

My dad told me that he later found out why the story had touched him so deeply. Jesus Christ is the happy prince. The literal Son of God our King who would have never felt any sorrow or pain if had remained in our Fathers kingdom but instead he came to earth and sacrificed everything even his life for us, for me. Such an awesome sacrifice brings tears to my eyes and makes me thankful for such a merciful Savior and such a loving Heavenly Father to prepare a way that I could be made clean again through Christ atoning sacrifice .