Hello my incredible family,
I love you all and thank you greatly for your many letters of love during my birthday weekend. I have received two packages so far. One with the camel and Jelly Beans :) and the other with the awesome ties that you bought for me :D I am now waiting for the other two.
I love being able to serve a mission. I have continued my study of Jesus the Christ and it has been bringing me closer and closer to the Savior as I study the scriptures referenced and am inspired by the spirit as to their meaning. I love being able to learn of the Savior because that is who He truly is. Our Savior. The one called to be able to lead us out of bondage into a new life filled with the spirit and a knowledge of who we truly are. This in turn brings us happiness and joy that is far beyond any we could find through the world and we desire to share it with all that we see. When we are born again in Christ we are given a desire as the sons of Mosiah who could not bare that "any soul should endure endless torment..." (Mosiah 28:3) How do we then become born again in Christ?
I have been studying a book given to each of the missionaries in the mission about addiction recovery. The mission president invited everyone to do so and I decided that I would take on the challenge. We had a meeting on how to help our investigators overcome addictions and through the meeting we learned that if we wanted to understand the process of true and lasting repentance we only need to study the Family Services Addiction Recovery Program book. I don't really remember the title. But the first step to recovery is being Honest. When we are painfully honest with ourselves we begin to see ourselves as we truly are.
Moses was able to do this after seeing God by admitting that "I know that man is nothing". From Jesus the Christ it references a scripture in Revelation that talks about how out of the mouth of Jesus Christ will go a sword. This led me to think of the scripture where Nephi tells his brothers "the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center." (1 Nephi 16:2) Being honest with ourselves is hard and painful because it cuts us to our center and we know that we truly are nothing without Jesus Christ. But there is the special promise. It is only without Christ that we are nothing, but with Christ we can accomplish everything. I know that the Atonement of Christ can help us out of any trial that we have in our lives. All that we need to do first is accept that we need Jesus Christ. This will then prepare us to follow Christ to the end and enable us to trust wholly and completely in Him. I know that Jesus Christ lives and I know that He loves us. I know that through Him we can be saved. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Sincerely,
Elder Christensen
