Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Not a lot of time

Date:  November 4, 2015
Area:  Kimberly, South Africa
Companion:  Elder Mashava
Week 19

Well this will be short and sweet! :) I was in Bloemfontein (2 hours East of Kimberley) for a zone activity on Monday so I didn't get to email.  I only have a little bit of time so I cant say much. For the activity we played soccer inside the gym of the church in Bloem it was pretty fun and then after that me and three others played some rugby. I like rugby a lot it was a blast! since south Africa has the second best rugby team in the world its a pretty big sport hear. The world cup just ended and we took third losing to New Zealand in the semi finals.

Anyways my week was pretty good. I had an awesome tender mercy this week. My companion and I were looking for this women named Louise but we couldn't find her house. It was number 15 and no where to be found. We found number 14, number 16 but no house number 15. the struggle was real and it was around 95 degrees and we were walking around this neighborhood trying to find a seemingly nonexistent house. Well we never found the place but not all was lost. We met a wonderful ma named Claudette. She makes these things called koeksisters which are like twisted donuts. They are delicious! We started talking to her and she all the sudden opened up to us and told us about how her mother just passed away and how she has been struggling with that and all the other things going on in her life as she struggles to raise and maintain her family. We were able to share part of the plan of salvation and how we are able to see our loved ones again. You could tell that she was touched by what we said and we were able to sit and teach and talk for a bit. It was an amazing experience because we may not have found who we were looking for but I know we weren't there by mistake, the Lord places us in places and specific times for his purpose. We need to find out why we are there and what he wants us to do, I am thankful we were able to find this amazing women that was definitively who we were supposed to find.

So I finally got to watch conference and although I don't have a lot of time to talk about it this week I did want to share my ponderize scripture of the week is from 2 Nephi21:15-16 which read "For can a women forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb; yea they may forget, yet will I not forget thee o house of Israel. I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me."

As I read and re read this scripture I have found new insight and understanding going beyond my first instinct. I first thought on it is for a mother to forget her child and then how Christ will not forget us. Then I thought of how we are graven on his hands. Every time that Chrsit looks at his hands and sees those marks left by the nails he was hung by, He remembers us, they were for us. We are literally  engraved upon His palms. I looked at what was ment by "forget" I came across the word forsake which was tied to it in another verse. so I re read again this time replacing the word forget with forsake. He will not forsake us. He will never forsake or abandon us but yet he says thy walls are continually before him. What does that mean? I thought of what kind of wall they were talking about. We all have walls in our lives that hinder us from going down the paths we desire, these are the walls I think Christ was talking about. Our emotional, physical walls, our trials and hardship, or sadness and grief. These things we don't have to face by ourselves, our walls are continually before the Lord and He will help us climb over each and every single one of them.

If you would like to know what it means to ponderize the scriptures check out this conference talk.
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/my-heart-pondereth-them-continually?lang=eng

I love you all and pray for your safety and well being, God bless!
sincerley
Elder North

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