The Parable of the Talents

I feel like I have been blogging a lot recently, but this thought has been on my mind a lot recently so I felt like I should share it and what better venue to share it than my blog?! :)

I don't remember who or when it was, but I was recently reminded of one of Christ's many parables. As I'm sure you have guess by the title of this post, it is the parable of the talents. Now, there are a few different parables that Christ tells that involve talents, but the one I want to talk about is in Matthew 25:14-29. A quick summary of the parable goes like this:

A man was planning on going on a long trip so he called three of his servants and, according to their abilities, he gave them different talents, or pieces of money. He gave five to the first, two to the second, and just one to the last servant. While the man was away, the first servant doubled his talents and so did the second, but the last dug a hole and hit the talent in the ground.

From Troll to Testimony: Aubert's Baptism

A month and a half ago, someone that I had been teaching for about a month got baptized. The first time I talked with him on chat he didn't seem very sincere so I kind of shrugged him off and suggested he go to church and read the Book of Mormon. A few days later he came back on and said that he had gone to church and that he really wanted to learn more. So I excitedly said that we could teach him.

As the lessons progressed, I realized that he was more prepared to hear and receive the gospel than I ever imagined could be possible. From the very beginning he had deep insight and understood everything that we taught. He not only understood each individual concept, but he understood the meaning behind it. I was continuously amazed at how intelligent he was!

Sure he faced some challenges along the way, but in the end Aubert was able to get baptized and is now a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I am very grateful for the opportunity that I had to teach Aubert and get to know a little bit about him. Here is his testimony and the story of his conversion!

I am Aubert, I am a 16 year-old student from Quebec, Canada, and I’m a Mormon. I was baptized on December 18th, 2011, and confirmed a member of the Church on the 25th (it was the most amazing Christmas present EVER). Let me tell you how I found the Church.

Anyone who is quite familiar with the Internet knows that the Mormon chat on www.mormon.org is a tool MANY people use for fun. I used to be one of those people, and that is how I found the Church. I used to go on the missionary chat and ask missionaries stupid questions like: How do magnets work? I and other Internet trolls would disguise sentences like that one and ask the missionaries until they realized we were just fooling around.

One day, as a school project, I was asked to pick a religion and write a paper about it. It was quite a big paper, and after good thought, I chose the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. I decided, for some reason, that instead of simply doing a research using Wikipedia, I would read the Book of Mormon, meet with missionaries and go to Church so I knew what I was talking about. I ordered a book of Mormon, and it was delivered to me by two missionaries. I was surprised to learn there even was a chapel in my town, and I was filled with what I would later learn was the Holy Spirit when I met up with them to talk about the basic beliefs of the Church.

The Game

We usually get two cars to go to church so that we can all go. But yesterday, they only had one for us to use. So instead of going to Sacrament meeting with the BYU wards, a few of us stayed back and went to Sacrament meeting here in the MTC. We weren't sure when or where we should go so we kind of just guessed it. We guessed wrong in that we happened to pick a Spanish one. But there were two talks that were in English and with regards to those, we definitely picked right! The focus of this post is on one of the talks from that meeting.

One woman got up and spoke of a game. In this game, your bank deposits $86,400 into your account every day. But like all games, there are certain rules and restrictions. There are three main rules to this game:

1. As soon as you wake up in the morning, your account has $86,400 and at the end of the day, whatever you have left goes to $0. The next day this cycle repeats. You can't put the money into a different account or even withdraw it to save up from day to day. 
2. You are the only one who can use this money. You can us it on others, but you can't just give them money. You are the only one who is able to us this. 
3. The bank can decide that the game is over whenever it wants. There may not be any sort of warning or advanced notice. The game is over whenever the bank decides.

So that's it. Those are the rules! So what would you do if you were in this game? What would you do with your daily allotment of $86,400? Would  you buy everything you have ever wanted? Would you just let it sit and use as much as you need? Would you buy things for other people and help them? What would you do?

Max's Baptism

It was at the end of September that I first met Max. From the very beginning I could tell that she had been prepared by God to receive this message. In one of our first meetings with Max she asked about piercings. Elder Callahan and I told her that our leaders had asked that women only have one set of piercings on their ears. A few minutes later she responded and said that she had just taken all of her piercings out! From that moment I knew that she was ready and willing to do whatever it took to follow God. And she was!

In her own words, this is her experience:

"It was in August 2011 I decided that I didn't want to live my life as it was before because I was kind of a foul mouthed little so and so. I looked up religion on the internet and I came across The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints, so I went onto www.mormon.org and spoke to a missionary and asked him some questions about the church. 

Steven's Baptism

A few months ago I posted the story and testimony of my friend Liz who was baptized in October. A  few months later she told me that she has a friend who had been to church with her and who was interested in learning more and she asked if we would be willing to teach him. Of course we said yes! I had no idea at that time what kind of an awesome guy was asking us to talk with.

In our first lesson with Steven, he was perfect! I don't think I have ever seen anyone who was so prepared to hear the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and actually apply it to their lives! From the very beginning I knew that God had been preparing him to meet with us. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I had to meet Steven and to learn from him. I think I learned more from him than he did from me! :) Here is his great story and amazing testimony!

"What is the meaning of life? Why do I exist? Can I really make a difference in someone's life?

    If you are asking yourself these questions and feel as if you're missing something in your life, perhaps you feel an emptiness in you that you want filled, then I recommend you read The Book of Mormon. It has given me so many blessings and even provided answers to the many questions I had regarding life, whether it be spiritual or otherwise, it is a fountain of information and a great gift given to us by God to reach everlasting salvation in his celestial kingdom of Heaven. If you don't have a copy of The Book of Mormon, feel free to visit www.Mormon.org, you can receive a free copy and learn a lot more about the Mormon religion.

New Year, New Me

That's right, it's time for the cliche new year's post! :) I usually try to avoid the stereotypical, cliche things but I decided to do a post anyways about the new year and my own personal goals.

So last night I was talking with one of the good friends that I have made over the past almost six months and she asked me if I had made any new year's resolutions yet. I responded and told her that I hadn't and proceeded to tell her why I thought it was dumb to set goals once a year. She replied, "Well these are my goals..." and told me the goals she had set for herself.

They were really good! I thought back to some of the goals I have made in the past. There was the one year when they were all things like "Don't do drugs." Well I've never been into drugs at all so I definitely accomplished those without any effort. Then there was the year when I really wanted to change and set goals of "Don't do this, don't do that, and do this every week." After what I considered a complete failure at those goals, I pretty much tossed them out the window after about two weeks and never thought of them again.

The Long Night is O'er

A quick disclaimer: There are a lot of thoughts running through my head right now about how I want this post to be. So if it doesn't make sense, I apologize. I just hope you all get the idea of what I am trying to convey! :)

I am so very grateful for this season that we are coming up on! This is by far my favorite time of the year! From the majestic music, to the sensational smells, and to the atmosphere of the season, it is just the best time of the year! Before my mission, whenever I would hear the word Christmas, a number of thoughts and emotions would flood my brain. Of course Christ was amongst these, but I am sad to say that He wasn't at the front. The first thoughts that came to mind always involved traditions like spending time with my family, making gingerbread houses, watching the Muppet's Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve and waking up at 6 am to open presents. Obviously, none of these are bad thoughts and feelings to have at Christmas, but they also aren't the best.