Conversion (Ben letter 3/1/2019)

Note: He actually called me this morning in a hurry, they decided to send him and his companion today (march 5) after all. He had about 15 mins to pack and was out of breath after sprinting across the campus. He sounded excited to be in Ukraine by tomorrow. They fly out of Salt Lake today, through Amsterdam and then to Kiev. Exciting!

I am not leaving March 5th anymore, luckily. They were going to send me at the same time as the other Ukrainian elders, but they changed it back to the normal six weeks. Which I am happy about considering 4 weeks is not really enough time to cover the basics of Romanian. If I didn't say this before, like 2 years ago Romanian used be 9 weeks in the MTC. So 4 weeks would have been brutal. 

Well all those basketball games this week sound fun, I couldn't tell you how much I would love to watch some type of basketball game, because a lot of the fun elders to play with have left, and so it's not as fun anymore. Also I rolled my bad ankle pretty good, so its swollen etc, but I've dealt with far worse.

Yeah but the MTC here has been pretty ok too. I don't dislike it, but I wanna feel more effective then I am. I am working as hard as I can to learn to teach effectively, and learn the language. But honestly the number one reason I want to leave is because they have a food cycle, and it is quite repetitive. Besides that, I'm having a blast, especially because my district has become so close. It's pretty much the life here, especially because I don't usually have to worry about anything. Life is good, but there isn't anything new going on.

Elder Christofferson came to the MTC last week, and he gave a really good talk about conversion. He spoke about different levels of conversion, and how it really isn't easy to become fully converted. He talked about one level of conversion, the middle level. In this level he used the example of a previous stake president, who prayed everyday, and read his scriptures, went to church, and fulfilled his callings. But he was not fully converted because when it came to a certain point of temptation, he gave in. An example of someone a little more converted was the Apostle Peter. He knew Jesus and was committed to him. Yet he denied him 3 times before the cock crowed. And lastly, an example of the highest level of conversion was Peter, who repented of his denying Christ, and fully turned his heart to God. Elder Christofferson explained how in order to be fully converted, its more then just doing what you're supposed to, because someone needs/ wants it to be done. You don't have conversion, you ARE converted. Your very essence is goodness and conversion. It is who you are, morally ingrained into you. It is who you are in every small moment of the day. Not just scripture study and prayer. Not just doing your calling. Essentially it is aligning your will with the will of God, which is easier said then done. It reminded me of a book I read before I came to the MTC, The Compound effect. My branch president also uses this book, and this talk also reminded Him of this book. What the compound effect is, in my words, is the small  decisions that you make every moment, that all add up to something greater. Are we made of the handful of big decisions we make? How do we make these big decisions? How do we get ourselves in the position to make any big decision at all? Through all the small moments. In fact it seemed as though what Elder Christofferson was saying was that not only are those small decisions important, they are more important because of what they lead us to. The way we become converted to God is not the 20 mins it takes to do all the ordinances. It's about turning out hearts to Him, always. Anyway kind of a difficult thing to explain, just watch his talk and you will get what I'm saying. But the most important thing to remember is that although most of us will not become 100% aligned to Gods will in this life, he is always happy with every good decision we make to become closer to Him. 

Anyway,

Eu ne Iubesc pe noi

Varstnicul Ben 

 I told him life was 'meh' lately because of the weather and we had a plumbing problem...

Richland is still my favorite place in the whole world because of 3 things. 1) family/ friends 2)Bombers 3) weather/geography.

But one thing is certain, life sucks when one of things goes wrong. And I can guess based on this past email, the bombers will yet again not win state, and the weather sucks. So life is meh. I mean at least that's how it was for me. Yeah it was a matter of time before something flooded the basement, but this is probably the first time a child has not caused the disaster.

His companion is the one with the rope and Ben with the football pose