Evergreen Avenue : Week 29: Follow the Light

My fam from Buenos Aires!!!! Just missing the other little girl

This week I studied about light.

The light of Christ is “given to every man, that he may know good from evil” (Moroni 7:16-PMG 90). Heavenly Father has given us this life to learn and grow and FOLLOW the light we were born with and to gain light.. Like Larry R. Lawrence tells us, “Would you be surprised to learn that your success in life depends upon how much light you gain while you are here.” Success is not about how much money you make, how many medals, or how much fame you achieve.. The real object of our existence is to gain light.”

My Utahn

He also explains how just as our physical bodies grow bigger when we feed it nourishing food, our spirits grow brighter when we feed it light. He loves us, so he gave us the Light of Christ, our conscience as some people know it as, to guide us. I was walking with Hermana Pattillo one day and asked her why in a talk I read it said that in the end when we are face to face with Heavenly Father instead of us being the ones begging to stay in his presence HE will be the one probably saying, “Please stay.” Wouldn’t everyone want to stay? She said, “Maybe it depends on how comfortable we are… maybe the difference of light?” I didn’t really get that… She said, “We don’t magically change once we die.. We have the same personality, charity, all the same attributes.. So if we want to be comfortable in front of our maker at that day we return to him, we should prepare now as if we want to be ready at any moment.. We shouldn’t wait till tomorrow.”

I thought about that and then read D&C 88 about how the Lord determines whether we receive a telestial body, terrestrial body, or celestial body. I learned how simple it is.. How if we accumulate enough Celestial light, we are resurrected with Celestial Bodies, and if we only accumulate enough light of Terrestrial or Telestial, that is the body we have.

I heard once how Heaven will not be Heaven to those who are not Heavenly, and even though I am never going to have a perfect understanding of this kind of stuff until after this life I understand better than before what that might mean.. Maybe it will be like walking into a party you decided to go to last minute and the invitation said suit and tie, dresses etc. but you were already late and thought maybe others would be in jeans too or wouldn’t notice… You get to the party and EVERYONE is dressed up, shoes shined ,curled hair, lookin spiffy.. You want to bolt out the door you just came through but your friends have already spotted you and are excited to see that you decided to come. Even though everyone is extremely nice and your theory was right that people didn’t seem to care or notice, YOU notice and care a LOT about how awkward this is haha. So about 30 minutes later you answer your phone that didn’t ring and talk to your “dad” and make the excuse that you have to leave. Your friends are sad to see you go but you are so excited to just get out of there.

The other Gringas

I used to think how could someone say, “Get me out of here!” or how could Heaven not be Heaven for some people? Well our acts don’t change, our personality doesn’t magically become the most charitable, non-judgmental, loving, happy personality because we died, our works are the same.. So if we want Heaven to be Heaven, well we should decide now how to act and work every day to grow the light that God gave as a gift to us before. Then when we show up to the party we are excited to see others and comfortable, not making the fake phone calls to dad haha.

“Exceeding light is an attribute of every resurrected Celestial being” – Larry R. Lawrence. Like the angels at the Lord’s tomb or Angel Moroni.. Their “countenance was like lightning.” It’s cool to think that we too have the potential to have this light. So how can we gain light in this life?

1. LOVE and serve others—The second commandment equal to the first. –Matthew 22:39, 1 John 4: 18, 20, 21, 1 Corinth. 13

2. Study the Scriptures!! There is always something new to learn.. especially in the Book of Mormon! It is the keystone to our religion!

3. Go to church every Sunday and partake of the Sacrament to remember our Savior and renew our covenant of baptism each week! –BD: Covenant

4. Go to the temple. Go each week! If it’s a sacrifice of time that’s a good thing.. It shouldn’t be on every 6 month thing.. Even if it’s just walking on the grounds of the temple! “Temple light is even more beneficial to our Spirit than sunlight is to your body.”

5. Pray. Pray for help every day to be stronger than you were yesterday, repent daily! Repentance is not just for the sinner but an everyday part of who we are to become as Christ. Pray to have strength against Satan. –D&C 1:33, D&C 93:39

The fam with Presidente

There are a lot more ways we can gain light every day, following the commandments, loving our families, having faith and being a light each day in word and example. These are just the points I wrote down in my study journal because I want to be better at following all of the advice I found in my study for the rest of my life! Read Doctrine and Covenants 88:25-40.. or the whole chapter but 25-40 are really cool! At the end of our lives God is not going to say, “Hmmm well you only received 500 ‘likes’ on your Facebook during your life so…” What’s really important is gaining light in our spirits, nourishing our spirits every single day. That’s the goal!

We had a great week! Lots of walking, lots of talking, listening to Christmas music (cuz it’s NOVEMBER!!), great lessons, people bailing on us, almost got bit by a dog (we were walking with a lady who was walking her dog and a stray dog came and picked a fight with the other one and decided to run around me and the lady so we were tangled in the leash while they tried to kill each other..all is well but I have a cool leash burn!). Oh we also saved a baby bird because it fell out of its nest and the cats were going to eat it!

Making an appointment with the lioraff (giraffe-lion hybrid)

And last but not least we accidentally walked into a group of Adventistas and taught them about the Restoration! We were walking back from a lesson and passed a small Hobbit door and I heard people singing, “Grande Eres Tu” (How Great Thou Art) so I stopped and said, “Mormons!” We peeked into the hobbit door and saw a group singing and an old lady saw us and said, “Come, join us!” So I was all for it and so we went in and sat basically shoulder to shoulder with people singing at the top of their lungs extremely out of tune (pure soul haha). Then I looked around and thought, “Well this is kind of an odd group.. and wait a second, this isn’t the same song as in the hymn book (they were listening off YouTube). After they sang I asked “Are you all family?” An old lady responded, “We are a family in God!!” Right on… That’s cool! “Do you attend a Church?” Here it comes… “NO this IS our Church! We meet every Friday.” We soon realized we totally sabotaged a worship session. Then they started trying to teach us from a Bible written by a lady who lives in Peru.. who USED to be Mormon we found out! So basically they believe all we believe but don’t think it’s from The Church of Jesus Christ. SO, we taught them lesson one and also shared the video “Gracias a El” and it went quite well I think haha…

Well I’ll tell you more next week. Love ya!

---Ash