From: Braydon Carter <braydon.carter@myldsmail.net>
Date: Sun, Oct 7, 2018 at 10:52 PM
Subject: Enjoy to the end, not endure. 10/08/2018
Hello everyone!!
I'm excited to write this email this week! It really has been a really good week!
First off, I want to say I hope you all watched conference. Here in Malaysia, because of the dramatic time difference, we have to wait a week to watch it. I don't think I have ever been excited to watch it in my whole life. I think being on a mission has really helped me understand how awesome conference actually is. We often explain prophets to other people as we are teaching them. We will say something to the effect of, "You know Moses, what was his purpose?" They will answer saying that he would guide the people. Then we will follow up telling them we have a prophet today. Like I knew prophets were pretty cool, but they are literally called of God to help guide us in our lives. Kind of like a TED conference that God puts on just for us. It pretty awesome so go give it a watch. I'm excited to hear their words.
Next I want to report on my goal. For those of you who may not know I really, really, really want to learn Chinese. And when I say learn, like, I want to have really strong understanding of why the language is the way it is. So to start doing that I have started to read the Chinese Book of Mormon. My goal is to finish it before Christmas. I am trying to read about 8 pages a day WHICH IS HARD. But I love it. By the end of the day I will be close to page 80. In the mandarin Book of Mormon there are just over 620 pages. So still a long ways to go. But I finished 1 Nephi which was really cool. It's super awesome to see my self improve my reading everyday. When I first started doing this goal it took me 3 hours to get my 8 pages read. But I am slowly getting to the point where I can do it in half the time, with an even better understanding.
To start off my email this week I want to share a verse with you that I actually just read today.
In Chinese it is:
"27因此，世人在肉身中是自由的；凡对人类有益的事物都赐给他们。他们可以借着全人类的伟大中保，自行选择自由和永生，或顺着魔鬼的束缚和力量，选择束缚和死亡；因为魔鬼力图使所有的人都像他一样悲惨"
Here is my direct translation:
Therefore, mortal people in the flesh have freedom. Ordinary people have beneficial things all given to them. They can be borrowers from all of man kinds great advocate, voluntarily choose freedom and eternal life, or follow the devils restricting power, and choose to be bound and destroyed. Because the Devil wants to be it so we all are miserable like him.
The real translation is:
27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
I want to share this for 2 reasons:
1 To show that Joseph Smith was incredible. He had much harder languages to translate and he through Gods power gave us the Book of Mormon. We need to read it.
2 This verse goes along with a big lesson I learned this week. Enjoy to the end, not endure to the end. That a powerful line that has been passed trough missionaries, that they will often teach new members. That is what this life is all about is enjoying. Not hanging on by the tips of your fingers hoping you won't fall.
I had seen this lesson very much pop up in my life through this last week. I love how that verse in a scriptural way says. We can chose to be happy, or we can choose to suffer. This reminds me of what my Bishop had told me shortly before I left. "Which wolf are you feeding?" If you haven't read that story, I encourage you to look it up.
The reason this story and scripture had such a big impact on me was because of an eye opening night. The story kind of goes something like this. It was a really hot day, and because we ride bikes in our missionary attire it's even hotter. Plus the humidity. So I just wasn't loving it outside, then I felt like although we did a lot that day, we could of done better. These thoughts are all on top of me often thinking about the future, like I do. And almost in a way starting a mental count down.
That day, I sat an pondered while my companion needed to take care of some leadership responsibilities. I remember falling down in prayer, begging God to forgive me for that day. For my attitude, for my effort, and to help me open up my eyes.
That's when I realized I wasn't in the moment. That I was doing a mission, I wasn't serving one. I was getting caught in the motions instead of enjoying the ride. A mission is a blessing not a burden, and I am ashamed to say I was starting to see it as a burden. But from that time on, something changed. Like God had pulled me up like a football coach and said, "Come on. Let's go. It's time to play."
I noticed something big. Really big. I'm not here for me. Sure I will grow and I will have a lot of blessing along the way. But this isn't for me. It's to literally help others realize how awesome this gospel is and how it will save their lives. This is for God. The biggest impression I had that night was I'm not out here working for myself. I'm not trying to be the best I can for my self. But for God. For the Being that has literally given me everything since the day I came into this earth. And long before then too. I'm here to serve Him.
That's when my mind shift changed. This is an awesome opportunity to love every second of what I am doing. To show God how much I love Him and how dedicated I am to this work. To show Him that with the 21 months I have left that I want to really show Him my appreciation. Show Him how much I love Him, and what He has done for me. It's time to feed the right wolf ;)
I don't have a whole lot of stories but I really wanted to share with you that experience and how I am really excited to go tackle this next week.
I will end with this. This week we did have one awesome experience. We went to this big food court area and started contacting. We were going around talking to different people. Having some rejections, having some good hellos with the locals. Anyways, we continued walking around and a lot of the time we go looking for specific people. What we call kingdom builders. YSA people or families. That night there wasn't a whole lot in that area. I did notice one person but he was on his phone playing a game and every time we tried talking to people on their phones they immediately shut us down. So I didn't say anything to him. Anyways we continued walking around and my companion said to me, "I'm not seeing many people but there is that one guy over there." ( The exact same guy I saw) So I thought, well that's two promptings, we better go for it. So I went up to him, showed him my phone which had a new Chinese word I was studying, and I asked him how to use it. ( I like to contact and learn ;) ) He then looked at my phone for a second, looked at his phone (which had his game), then turned his phone off, and then desperately tried to help me know how to use the word. But he didn't know much Chinese either HA. But then he invited us to sit down and we ended up getting to know each other, talking a lot about God and how He helped our lives. He then asked us how he could pray. He said the most beautiful prayer and thanked us for helping us teaching him how to talk to God.
It just goes to show, never shy away from the promptings of the Spirit. He is there to guide you and help you. And If I'm out here just to help people know that they can talk with God, then there is still a lot of good going on. A lot of people have no idea about God, and they are so in need of His help.
I love you all so much, but like I said in the email, I've got some enjoying to do ;) You are all so awesome I encourage you this week to find out how you can enjoy this week!
Thank you all so much for your prayers, and your love. Seriously it's building me quicker than I've ever thought possible. My maturity, and my testimony. What I don't think a lot of people realize when we talk to them is there are thousands of prayers backing us up! So seriously, thank you! Don't forget to read the Book of Mormon this week, and don't forget to pray. There's a loving Heavenly Father that is waiting for an opportunity to help you. Pray to Him and let Him help! And keep going to church. I mean, come on, with the new change coming up in January going to church shouldn't be to hard ;) "Could you not stay awake with me 2 hours" ;)
I love you all so much!
Until next week!
Elder Carter
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