Monday Sept 8, 2014 - As he says it - this week had sadness, annoyingness, miracles and joy!

So Hi everybody reading this,

You may ask how was your week and to be honest it had everything in it. It had sadness, it had annoying things, miracles, and joy. It has been a rollercoaster of a week. 

First though as always begin with studies. So this whole week I have been focusing intentively on Virtue I wanted to know what it was and how to gain it because I really enjoy in Doctrine and covenants 121 Where it says let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly" and I wasn't sure what it means to be quite honest, It is a hard topic. And virtue is used differently in different situations as well so it confused me. Well I studied Virtue and at our zone meeting we talked exactly about it, Virtue doesn't change by one decision however it is a compund of many small decisions which control the way you think, and I have been taught and in my studies have found alot that lately your thoughts depict what you do, So even if your actions are good but thoughts are bad your actions don't lead to virtue. It is all part of your thoughts, and I was trying to apply it to when you are changing a behaviour, Say for instance stop swearing. Well it is easy to just not say the word but the behaviour changes more when You change your thoughts so that the words don't even come too you. Interesting isn't it. I thought so, well my study took me into Sacredness, which then lead me to modesty. 

So when I studied Sacred, it referenced holy and purity which shows me that with virtue it gives unto us Pure and holy thoughts, which then with our virtue being pure gives way for us to recieve revelation. In Preach my gospel under Virtue in Chapter 6 It says that are minds are like a stage and there can only be one person in the spotlight at a time and if our minds are not fulll of wholesome thoughts well then the darkness droops in, but we are counseled to sing a hymn, memorize scriptures, Those kind of things to keep our thoughts virtueous.

So after Sacred I went to Modesty, and as I thought it would, it referred to our manner of dress, however the thoughts talked also about being modest in thought action and dress. Which I really liked because When we are modest in all of what we do then that is when Virtue can truly garnish all of our thoughts and actions and that we will be able to hold and use that unchanging scepter of righteousness promised to us in Doctrine and Covenants 121. Modesty was then used In true to the faith and that led to chastity and marriage, and then temptation and fasting which was interesting. I love how the church focuses so much on chastity and I can not remember the Verse it was but it talked in Moroni about I think the nephites taking the daughters of the Lamanites and taking that which was most precious unto them which was chastity and virtue. Which showed me just how important they are. We are commanded to be chaste so that our bodies and our thoughts don't control us, we are to control them and loss of chastity can lead to other things which can cause destruction , can alter relationships, cause for affection to be replaced, and it can harm your Virtue.  So I thought that was interesting.

That was my studies this week and now for my week.

So this week we had alot of stuff, We had alot of Dinner appointments which was nice but we also had alot of dropped appointments. Satan has been hitting our investigators all pretty hard this past week with health so it's been a struggle but eventhough we had alot of drops we were able to find a few people who we have started to meet with now who has NO belief at all in Jesus Christ and God but are curious to find out so that was a nice little miracle we experienced this week, One other thing that was kind of frustrating for both of us is that we had exchanges planned but all week our other team was sick so my companion scheduled the exchanges twice the past week and they had to cancel them so we don't have much time today because we are going to do them today. But this week has been a learning experience for sure.

I love all of you and 

Know that I know that God has a plan for each of us, he knows us and guides us in our lives. 

Check out Isaiah 42:16 I really enjoyed it.

Live long and prosper my friends

Elder Reece Out.

- Elder James Reece