November 18 2013

Hola Family,

Alright, so this week, nothing really exciting, but we have found a ton of new people to teach, so we´re not really walking around playing with our toes anymore :p

I´ve had a LOT of humbling experiences this week, and I´ve realized something that we, as members of the church can fall into sometimes:

And even when we´re not members, sometimes we fall into a dangerous game. It´s called the game of "False Wisdom". I named it myself, haha, but in this game we start to study, and we study a lot. scriptures, talks, other God-related books, and we fall into the erroneous trap of thinking we´re okay in the eyes of God because we understand the concept of repentence, or we understand why having the Holy Ghost with us is important. Then, the part of our mind that´s connected with our natural and fallen environment starts to tell us, "Don´t you worry, you´re completing everything you need to to be saved. you´ve learned it all, right? so why wouldn´t you be doing it? you understand repentance, so you can just do it after anything, and still be sincere." And the most dangerous part of the game is, we have to end it early, because if we play every level, we´ll have to keep playing it for eternity in Hell.

The art of knowing is 20% of the battle folks. you could memorize the scriptures and still end up in the Telestial Kingdom. a lot of great and really "Intelligent" people apostasized when the church first started, it´s just a matter of the subtlety of the temptation. sometimes we think we know so much that our conversion starts to only be in our mind, and we don´t realize that while we´re bragging about the spiritual KNOWLEDGE we have, our spiritual STRENGTH is slowly withering and fading into the darkness.

FAITH = ACTION, people. not just knowledge. and that´s the lesson for today :p. haha also, I´ve lost 70 pounds. only 10 more to go :D

Stay in school!

Much Love, Elder Sheppard