At war

Kumusta kayo! This last week has been great and interesting. Tuesday we were spending some time with a part member family. The same family that we generally are with, the one with the little kids. They own some baboy (pigs) and wanted to show me them. So we start walking done the road and they say, "Elder, this way." Pointing to a small little path in the jungle. So we hiked through the jungle, it was awesome. The baboy were pretty cool, they were much bigger than I thought they would be. We did this throughout the week, we often have dinner appointments with them. On one of the trips we were walking down the road to go through more farm and a much easier path than the one through the jungle. We found this goat who had his head stuck in the fence and because of its horns it wasn't able to pull its head out. We tried for probably twenty minutes to help this poor goat get unstuck but it was to no avail. I was thinking about how to help when a though came into my mind. "Kneel down and pray." At first I though "I don't know it's kinda silly to pray about helping a goat." But I decided to kneel down and offer a pray. It was a really quite prayer, almost non-verbal and I could tell that the someone was watching me. I finished the prayer and found one of the non-members watching me. She then had the idea that I go to the other side of the fence and push the goats head while she pulls it. We then were able to free the goat.

 I learned some very important lessons from this experience.

 The first one is nothing is to small or to silly for you to pray about, if it's important to you and it's a good thing then it's important to Heavenly Father.

Second lesson I learned was sometimes the promptings from the Holy Ghost we receive aren't for you in the end. What I mean by this is that I already know how powerful prayer is, I've had some really amazing experiences with prayer but this little girl might not have known, she might not have that same testimony but now it is at least strengthened by me acting on the prompting I received.

Third is sometimes we need help. The way I kinda saw the whole thing was the goat was us, people. The grass on the other side of the fence, that it was trying to eat, was temptation, and the fence was sin. We are tempted ever second of every day. We are in the most important war that will ever be fought. The spiritual war of choosing to be on Heavenly Fathers side or Satans side. When we sin or fall into temptation we get stuck in the fence and are unable to free ourselves. That is where Christ comes in. He is the only way out of the fence and it is by his grace that we are saved. It's Christmas season and we all have the opportunity to rejoice His birth and his life. I would like to leave a challenge to all of you. Every day set time aside to read about the birth of Christ and to really think about what He means to you. I promise that if you do this you will see His hand in your life more and come even closer to Him.

Alam ko na sa pamamagitan ng pagbabayad-sala ni Jesucristo and kung susunod sa Kanyang halimbawa tapos magiging mas masaya tayo. Alam ko na kinakailangan ang tagapagligtas at alam ko na pagmamahal si Jesucristo si Ama sa Langit.

Mahal ko kayo at Maligayang Pasko,

Elder Lewis