28.03.2014

Hey friends!

 

This is me rocking it still at the England MTC! I hope all of you are doing just great. I know I am. Being a Missionary is hard, the days are long, but I`m learning so much and it`s so rewarding! Elder Schiffer and I are still companions and we get along great! I`m the leader of the Benjamin District...which at first freaked me out but I`ve come to love them all so much! They are like my kids ha :) Elder Wipf is a convert and he`s from Alberta, Canada. HE KNOWS THE HENINGERS. So cool! He laughs a lot and is a complete stud. One of our teachers shared D&C 88:67 with him because he was laughing so much ;) Elder von Wallwitz is from Brazil but he`s essentially fluent in German. He`s like my twin! We`re both PR majors and we both love basketball. We also have the same toothpaste. It`s almost creepy :) I love him. Like in an appropriate way. Sister Wiborny is from near Frankfurt and we know a lot of the same people! She`s great too. She even wrote me a note yesterday saying I`m the best District leader in the MTC (there`s five). Made my day! :) And then there`s Sister Taylor from Oregon. She is great as well but a little shy because she thinks her German isn`t as good as everyone elses yet...which isn`t necessarily true. She`s so nice nontheless :)

 

We went to the Temple today. I loved it! The entire MTC had a session for themselves. In total, there`s 29 of us Missionaries here :) I know them all by name, even without tags. Being in a small MTC is so fun :) The sun was shining and it was almost 50 degrees today (which is essentially summer over here, as some other locals told us at the Temple grounds). We embraced it and took a lot of pictures, none of which you`ll get in this email. Bummer! But you will eventually see them, I promise :)

 

One of our "fake" investigators has a baptismal date. Teaching is so much fun! :) We`ll be in Munich a week from now, can you believe it?? Halfway there, living on a prayer...oooooohoooo.... :)

 

I love you all! Keep your heads up :) My spiritual thought for you today is D&C 80. A short section that gets overlooked so easily. President Edwards talked about it in a devotional...showing us how no matter where we go, there will be people who are waiting to receive our message! :)

 

Love,

Elder Friedmann 

20.03.2014

 

Hey everyone! I just wanted to say that I made it to the MTC well. It`s so cool here! I actually find a bunch of people who know people I know and we have a sweet little district! :) My provisory companion is Elder Schiffer from Hamburg, Germany, but I`ll get my official MTC companion later today. So sweet! I`m really excited to rock it here in Preston. Love you all! The Church is true!! :)

 

Elder Friedmann

That they should partake of it also

On their journey through the wilderness of Arabia, Lehi's family encountered one of the greatest tenants of the work of the Lord: That in the greatest time of affliction, great gain of spiritual knowledge can occur. Lehi saw, in a dream, one of the greatest visions of all time. Embedded in deep symbolism, he recognized and was introduced to the concept of eternal life, the atonement and the incomprehensible love that the Savior has for each one of us. Once he had felt of this love, he expressed a sincere wish: That his family should partake of it also.

To your relief, I might want to stress that I have not seen a vision. However, the desire to share the love of God with those around me, especially those I love the most, comes to me almost as naturally as to Lehi; And it should come to you too in the same way, if you have received the love of God as a witness of the truthfulness of His great work.

In Doctrine and Covenants section four, often designated as the most important revelation ever given in regards to Missionary work, we read that whoever has the desires to serve God is called to the work. This includes not only set-apart full-time Missionaries. It includes all those who have expressed this desire at baptism – All members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! While it is understandable that sharing the Gospel with those who surround us daily can be a daunting and at times scary task, it becomes light and enjoyable if we focus on doing so in the way the Savior did. He asks us to teach by good example and true, sincere love. He does not teach us to be forceful in conveying our message, or even to impair the agency of those we teach. Instead, think about it: If we go about doing good and continue to be a good example, there will be more good and at least one more good example in the world, regardless of whether those around us accept or reject our invitation.

Through all this, our main reason for sharing the Gospel should be to help others find the joy, peace, forgiveness, love and happiness that we have found. I try to think of it as a gift that is so precious that I would be ashamed of myself if I withheld it from someone intentionally.

Perhaps the most wonderful Missionary experience I've had thus far was with my college roommate and friend A_____. You might be familiar with him, either if you are stalking my facebook or if you've been to one of the many meetings at which I've born testimony by using his example. Either way, he is a fantastic young man whose great faith has stunned me many times. While he was an active Catholic when we met at the beginning of the school year, I had a very strong feeling that he someday would embrace the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that through his conversion, he would be a blessing to himself and to many generations to come after him. I realized that no later than about a month into the school year, on Conference weekend. I was quite impressed that a young Catholic college student would watch General Conference, but he did indeed watch all ten hours that weekend – A large sacrifice of time for a busy college student. In fact, he was the one who told me about the historic change of the missionary age when President Monson announced it, since I was in the shower when it happened.

A_____ did, however, continue to attend Catholic mass regularly and showed no signs of interest in joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We continued to be friends, even when he faced some major challenges in his life and even after he moved out of the room we shared. A few months later, however, the Missionaries who served in our stake contacted me and asked if I would like to help teach Adrian, who in the meantime had sent them a text expressing that he would like to be baptized as soon as possible. I was able to help the Missionaries teach him, even though at times it felt more like him teaching us. His desire to learn and to follow the Savior grew daily. In turn, his countinance changed. He was happier than before, and began to see a purpose in his life which now had hope and a new direction. One day, just a few weeks after we formally began teaching him, he accepted the invitation to be baptized. Despite initial opposition from his family back home in California, he held strong to the testimony he had received. He now attends a Church-owned university and is planning on being sealed in the Temple to his sweetheart very soon.

Regardless of whether you are a convert to the Church like me, whether you have been raised in it or whether you are only beginning to learn about it right now, I ensure you that here is room for you. The Savior Jesus Christ leads this Church, and He is calling you home to Him. As Elder Holland said, the blessings of following the example of Jesus Christ sometimes come not instantly, sometimes even not in this life, but to those who have faith and desire to follow the Savior, they certainly come. Once again, regardless of your current involvement in the Church, I guarantee you that you will be blessed for seeking and following the Savior and I invite you to do so. It is not too late. You have never gone too far. You have never rejected Him quite enough for Him not to embrace you, and to take you by the hand and to lead you back into His footsteps. May we all continue to bring forth this great work for all to partake of this great love of the Lord also. This is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, even the Great Redeemer of the world, Amen.       

Self-inflicted pain, agency, and the Atonement

Hello everyone! :)

I have to start this off with a disclaimer. I'm a libertarian. That means, among other things, that I personally support the legalization of gay marriage, marihuana and gambling. I believe that God has given us means and the power to decide for ourselves if we want to participate in these things or not. Therefore, I see no point in legally restricting them, as long as no one else is hurt or affected (unlike it is usually the case with prostitution, for example). I've made the choice for myself to live a life clean from the things I've mentioned, because I have covenanted with God to do so when I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

So much for that. You might wonder why I just said that, assuming that those who read this blog actually know me personally and are probably somewhat aware of the things I shared. It's because of a topic I've studied a lot recently: It's agency, and its role in our personal and spiritual well-being.

I've come to some conclusions. They might not make your world shake, at least not if you are familiar with the actual doctrine of agency (and why we have it, and how we got it). But they are certainly good reminders.

The first tenant of agency is the possibility to cause self-inflicted pain. I'm not talking about extreme poverty, hunger, loss of a loved one (unless you happened to kill them), or even most diseases we may battle at some point throughout our lives. I'm talking about making decisions that separate us from our Heavenly Father, contrary to things and circumstances that tend to bring us closer to Him (like poverty or the feelings of surety about the great things awaiting us in the life to come). The things that can separate us from our Heavenly Father include, but are not limited to: Pride, giving in to lust for worldly pleasures, neglecting the "little things" of a Gospel-focused life, cutting close on the limit of what we should do, and laziness. Let me give an example and brief explanation for each:

Pride is what I would call (and what many others have called) the original sin. It destroys our own self-worth. It destroys the self-worth of those around us. But the worst thing, from an eternal standpoint, is that it alters our divine identity. Don't get me wrong; It is not generally a bad thing to be proud of one's achievements. Once it happens, I'll be proud of myself for having served an honorable Mission, or for having a Master's degree from BYU. But problems start setting in quickly when pride leads to comparison with those who have seemingly achieved more or less than oneself. Then, we forget that all humans on Earth bear within themselves the exact same divine potential.

Giving in to the lust of worldly pleasures is another kind of self-explanatory point. Most formal commandments we've received in the Church deal with those things: The law of chastity, the Word of Wisdom, and several more sacred covenants we make in the Temple. Growing up in what I would describe as an ultra-liberal society, I've heard things like "But wine and coffee have so many great health benefits!" and "not everyone who watches porn cheats on his wife" so often that if it were other things I heard, I'd probably require treatment for tinitus. Yes, you might have a point with some of the things you claim. But the fact that wine is good for your tissues does not change that it's a mind-altering substance that influences negatively your ability to make decisions and to function normally. Coffee making you feel more awake doesn't change that it's an addictive substance that you let decide whether you can function or not. Pornography not leading to an instant divorce in some cases doesn't change that it destroys your self-worth, harms your interpersonal relationships and numbs the mind - so much that the more you watch it and act on it, the less you will care for those you truly and deeply love. As someone who has had his personal exposure to both alcohol and pornography, it's surprising that so few people know and understand that. Everytime I drank alcohol or watched porn, I felt great. Everytime it was over, I felt even more crappy than I had been feeling great prior - even without knowing anything about the law of chastity or the Word of Wisdom.

Neglecting the "little things" (or Primary answers) of the Gospel might, of the five things I mentioned, be the biggest danger to the dedicated believer. Why, you might ask? Because those who humble themselves before God are unlikely to develop serious pride issues. They will usually not transgress in a serious way, "just like that". They will gladly follow the path that our Heavenly Father has prepared for us and they will find it plain unnecessary to cut close to the edge. And they are likely to serve God and others with dedication and good effort. First off, very few people are doing well with their lives but all of a sudden do something really bad. In an extreme example, very few people just randomly get the desire to commit a crime, like killing somebody. Much more usual is a pattern in which those individuals, at some point, began to neglect the things that were once meaningful to them. As they lose ground and begin to slip a little, they struggle more and more to stay on target with what they desire most. Finally, their practices and standards have been eroded so severely that they have nothing left to cling to when it comes to making decisions. The same applies to living the Gospel: The less we read the scriptures, the less we feel the Spirit, and then the more likely it is for us to lose sight of the things that matter most. The less we pray, the less we acknowledge that we have a loving Heavenly Father we can pray to. Over time, our relationship becomes less and less meaningful, to a point where we might actually forget that it once existed. This can, and does, happen to thousands and thousands of "solid" members of the Church, and I myself am certainly not exempt. 

Cutting as close to our limits (i.e., the limit between righteous and sinful living) is something that's actually quite natural for children and adolescents. It helps them establish what they can permissibly do and what they can't. However, with the Gospel establishing very precisely the things that are permissible as compared to those that are not, there is no serious educational purpose in testing out our limits. That's why we are instructed to hold close to the figurative iron rod, rather than just making sure we can still see it somewhere in the distance. If we walk immediately next to a deep abyss, it only takes one small stumbling step to fall deep. We never might, but even taking the risk of it if it can be easily avoided is silly and immature in a real-world setting. The same should apply to our attitudes in regard to the laws and commandments of God. 

The final point is laziness. This is important because it's a very basic characteristic of the often so condemned "natural man". If we are lazy, we do not seek to make progress. We surrender in our fallen state, with neither desire nor effort to change. Quickly, we neglect ourselves and others and we become deeply content with our situation. Well, to those who have not quite gotten the memo, we are currently not in the presence of our Heavenly Father even though every person on Earth has, at one point, made getting back to Him their biggest desire of all. To quote Elder Dube's words from last Conference: "Look at the things we still have to do!"     

Now, we've been talking about stumbling stones a lot - maybe even a little more than I first intended before I wrote this post. However, the Gospel is one of hope and love, for one very specific reason. It's the Atonement. I've come to realize (and please don't haunt me if I move into speculation a little bit here) that applying the Atonement is the main purpose of our agency. Without agency, the Atonement would have been purposeless, because even if we somehow would have managed to transgress and develop actual weaknesses, we could never change! We could aspire and desire our salvation, yes, but we couldn't change because we wouldn't have the authority to decide in favor of repentance and change. Remember, because of the Atonement, we are allowed to change, and you are allowed, too! Therefore, agency doesn't only bring us into jeopardy, but it also allows us to partake of the sweetest and most wonderful feeling there is: Feeling the love of God without it being impaired by our feelings of guilt.

May we all feel so at the last day, is my prayer. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.