I Love the Gospel and the Strength it Brings into Our Lives

We had MLC this week and it was awesome! 

The topic that stood out to me the most was about the desires of our hearts and how we are here to work on molding them to the will of God. 

At zone training we had a sweet activity where we tried to help each missionary know 

how much they are loved and appreciated. 

We had each of the parents of all the missionaries in the zone  to send us a letter of appreciation 

for their missionaries. 

 We had them read their letters and there were many tears shed, but there was so much love in that room. Just watching them read their letters made me tear up! 

President and Sister Vest came to our zone training and we made them some cards as well. 

It all went super well! 

I love it when we have these meetings and are all edified together. 

The spirit was so strong there and I was definitely invigorated to go and do the Lord's work! 

We also had a great appointment with James and Sivita this week! 

We went up to the visitor center and watched the movie, 

"Joseph Smith The prophet of the Restoration". 

It was such a good movie. It's so well done and the spirit was so strong! 

If you haven't seen it recently, definitely go watch it! 

There's no way you can watch it and not believe that it is true. 

Joseph was such a great example of happy perseverance. I hope I can be half of the man that he was and IS. I love the gospel and the strength it brings into our lives. 

            As I was preparing my training this week I read an awesome quote from one of my favorite talks, "Each assertion of a righteous desire, each act of service, and each act of worship, however small and incremental, adds to our spiritual momentum. Like Newton’s Second Law, there is a transmitting of acceleration as well as a contagiousness associated with even the small acts of goodness. Fortunately for us, our loving Lord will work with us, “even if [we] can [do] no more than desire to believe,” providing we will “let this desire work in [us]” (Alma 32:27). Therefore, declared President Joseph F. Smith, “the education then of our desires is one of far-reaching importance to our happiness in life” (Gospel Doctrine, 5th ed. [1939], 297). Such education can lead to sanctification until, said President Brigham Young, “holy desires produce corresponding outward works” 

(in Journal of Discourses, 6:170). 

Only by educating and training our desires can they become our allies instead of our enemies! 

"(According to the desire of our hearts)"

            I love this principle of, training our desires so that they are our allies, because most of the time we are the victims of our own wrong desires. As we do things that are against the will of God they begin to be habits and then we continually desire those things. But if we do things that are righteous and we pursue righteous things, then our desires will change. They will then be our allies. I’m grateful for my mission and the opportunity it has given me to train my desires to be focused on more important things. There is so much out there to distract us, but its our choice 

whether we hold onto those things. 

This week we have transfers, so fingers crossed I stay here in Raytown. But I will let you all know what happens next week! But whatever happens will be sweet! 

Hope you all have a wonderful week and keep lifting others :).

With Love,  Elder Odland