Woo Hoo! I'm ready for Japan!
Ok, I might not really be ready yet but I'm so excited! Brother Jones has been showing us so many pictures from his mission of the areas, food, and the temple! The Japan Sapporo Temple is so beautiful, it's not in my mission but I want to share a picture with you! Japanese is coming along, I'm learning lots and my testimony of the gift of tongues has grown so much! Food wise, I'll either love it or hate it! Some of the foods Brother Jones has shown us look amazing and some other things are .... not as pretty.
Weekly Highlights!
My talk! On Sunday I gave a talk, my topic was "Learn and Live the Doctrine of Christ" and it went pretty well! I talked about knees! One night last week while my companion was playing volleyball I sat on the side and was brainstorming what I should talk about, there was a group of people in front of me and a Sister was asking to see people's knees (everyone always has long pants or dresses on in the MTC except when we are in the gym), she had has surgery on her knee last year and had a big scar. At first I was a little confused, I had just prayed for ideas to talk about and the first thing I heard was someone ask about knees? Then I thought about my knees, my knees have plenty of scars and marks from times I've made bad decisions like going too fast on my bike and wiping out or tripping and scraping my knees on concrete. I started thinking about it from another perspective, there are times where we trip, we mess up, we make the wrong decision and have to deal with the consequences. We all make mistakes and sin, but Heavenly Father sees us fall, He sees us mess up and sees the pain we feel. Jesus Christ is there to pick us up, when we sin or don't work as hard as we could, His atonement is there to help us. Through the atonement we can be forgiven and healed through Jesus Christ.
Sunday devotional! They talked about repentance and how it isn't just for big sins, it is how we can grow and learn. Repentance is a constant process and as we work through that process we grow closer to Heavenly Father and we become more like Him!
Tuesday Devotional! Elder Paul V Johnon of the 70 came to talk the MTC! He talked about our agency and how Satan only has power over us if we give him that power. If we are righteous and keep our covenants, Satan will have no power over us.
After each devotional we meet with our district and share what we've learned, I often learn more from these discussions than I do from the actual devotionals. Sister Cosman was sharing what she's noticed and she said that she's seen all of us grow so much over the past 5 weeks. I of course was thinking that I hadn't really changed much, and then she called me out and said "Elder Rasmussen has grown so much." I'm so grateful for the spirit and that Heavenly Father knows what each of us need and He is there to help us! The next day I was reading over my patriarchal blessing and really noticed that I am changing, I am becoming the person that it describes.
I love listening to conference talks! Throughout the week I've listened to many conference talks and it's amazing how, even though they are all on different topics, the constant between them all is the eternal truth that God is our loving Heavenly Father. One talk I listened to talked about priorities, I learned that the things that matter the most last the longest. The eternal things should take priority over all else; first, our relationship with our Heavenly Father, second, our relationships with family and close friends. I've also realized that every decision we make is significant, we should go into every interaction with people trying to be like and act like Jesus would. Everyone is a child of God, we all should treat each other with that in mind. We may not know what everyone is going through, but give them the benefit of the doubt and love them.
The Iceland and Japan flags were both up yesterday! I didn't get a picture but it helped me feel close to my brother, Elder Jacob Rasmussen. I love you Elder!
Google Photos album!
I Love you guys!
Elder Rasmussen
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