Week #51: La diferencia entre la felicidad y el gozo
Howdy howdy everyone!! How's everyone's summer going?! My winter here is going fantastically cold to be honest..although we did have a few nice sunny days this week, which was nice! The work here is also going great. We have some good people who are starting to show good signs of progression and we're so excited for them.
Although I don't have a specific story to share about one of the people we're teaching, I want to share something quick with you all that my companion, Elder Monge, has helped me understand this week. We were planning a little lesson to share with the zone here in Salto, and we began to talk about the joy and happiness we are promised as missionaries, if we are obedient and do all that were asked to do.
We both quickly agreed that we both have experienced a lot of happiness as missionaries. Throughout our service here in Uruguay we have been happy, but my companion really helped me understand that that is only temporal. Happiness is not a bad thing, but there's something better that we can achieve that is more lasting. Joy is the next level of happiness.
Joy is when we are truly a happy person and have complete confidence in God. Yes there are rainy and tough days still, but that never pulls a joyful person down. They keep their confidence in God that no matter what happens, it's always the will of Him. The only possible way to honestly gain this joy as a missionary, is doing everything at 100%.
There truly are no short cuts to having joy, I have learned. Joy is simply a gift from God to those who deserve it. It is easy to have happiness without the blessings of God in our lives. We can always find temporal happiness in just about anything, even if its a temporal happiness that lasts years. But it always comes to an end and we always find ourselves looking for what's missing in our lives.
The only way to find this joy and to have it at all times, is through the obedience of the teachings of Jesus Christ. It really is that easy, but the world will tell us that happiness is much simpler than joy. I can promise that we can find what we are all looking for, through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Hay que confiar en El no más.
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| Elder Shoemaker |
