I Had A Lot Of Fun This Week.

Another cat (it likes ice cream, no it wasn't me that gave it to it)

August 22, 2016

Hey everyone!

I had a lot of fun this week. Everyone was finally off of vacation and were able to just start meeting with everyone. It was a lot of fun to meet some new people and get to visit some good friends here.

We started finding some way nice people while knocking around some neighborhoods. I'm really excited to go back and get to share with them such a great message of Jesus Christ.

Bus stop graffiti

From Thursday afternoon until Saturday night there was a huge concert for like 3 days a few blocks down from our apartment. Needless to say, it made falling asleep quite difficult. I guess Saturday night there was a bunch of fireworks going off for it, but I was fast asleep so I didn't notice them. You'd think something so loud would wake me up, but it didn't. But on the other hand, the concert helped there be a ton of people out and about for half of the week. Granted, everyone was at the concert and not actually much on the streets, but hey, people were out either way!

My weekly spiritual thought this week is inspired from church yesterday. One of the talks that was held was on being thankful. For me, I don't know if I take enough time to be grateful for the things that happen in my life or what I have been blessed with. In Alma 37:37 the scripture reads,

"37 Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day."

Sunset in Bodø

I like the part where it talks about when we rise in the morning, that our hearts are full of thanks. It's not easy to be thankful 100% of the time because life gets tough, but I think when we try to take time to thank God for what we have, to thank Him for our family, our friends, the random old lady on the street that did something funny and made you laugh, that's when we start to become more thankful in our lives. There are so many things to be grateful for, and an innumerable amount of blessings from God that we receive. Although, it's up to us to try and see those incredible things in our lives.

Now I will say with surety that there are things in life, challenges, trials, struggles, illness, diseases, ailments, tragedies, and other things which our out of our control. And it is by no means easy, but at the end of the day, when some obstacle has been overcome, we are made stronger. Our trials are for our good, despite how bad they can be, but they are experiences we can look back on and be grateful that we COULD overcome it, that we were made stronger because of it.

I heard a quote supposedly by William Shakespeare, whether or not he said it I don't actually know, but the quote is,

"Tragedy is a comedy misunderstood." -Shakespeare

Now with tragedies, there are for sure sorrows associated to it. And a comedy doesn't necessarily mean that it's all funny. But I think what Shakespeare could have meant was that the things that come in life can be taken in two ways, we either see the good or the bad in what happened. How we interpret the world around us is only our perception of it.

I believe that our perception and gratitude go hand in hand. How we look at things in our own lives will affect how thankful we are for things. A lot in life is just our perception, so I hope that we make a greater effort in seeing the good in us, in others, and see the good in the world around us. I really do believe that will help us as people become more grateful so that when we wake up, our hearts can be full of thanks unto God.

I hope you all have a great week! Thanks for all you do!

Sincerely,

Elder Mickelson