Delight in life!

Finally got my cereal!  Thanks Mom!

What an awesome week this has been!! We did not get to watch 

Conference here because of the time difference but we will watch it next Sunday, but we did see the new Apostles. How amazing is that! I am so excited to hear from them. They are going to lead this church in righteousness and I know the Lord called them to lead this church. I saw some people on Facebook commenting on their callings and how there is no diversity and that they are frustrated. I will not start about that because it will get me all angry. But one comment I did like was that spirituality is color blind. I loved that so much. 

     But this week I wanted to focus on what our district has been doing together each week that I have loved so much. Every week we choose an attribute of Christ and we strive that week to apply it in our lives and try to make it our own attribute.  Now, these will take our whole lives to work on every day, but I have seen such a dramatic change in my life as I have consciously sought to rid myself of my natural man and become like my Savior. This week I have been focusing on diligence. I love this attribute. Two things really hit me that I learned about this attribute this week. In the PMG, it states that "Diligence is steady, consistent, earnest, and energetic effort." I loooved that so much. We know the steady and consistent but are we truly being earnest with energetic effort in our lives? This life is a race and we need to hold earnest and energetic effort from beginning to end. You need to have energy and love what you do. My brother Tanner just ran a marathon last weekend!! I am so proud of him. He is such an amazing example to me of having an energetic effort. He worked so hard to train for that race and he does so every day spiritually to train and work to be able to endure to the end with his personal study and constant example. Going along with those qualities comes the most important in my opinion. 

     My zone leader was on splits with me and he told me how the previous mission president for this mission, President Budge, told the missionaries something close to this. "I have looked into it, and the base of diligent is delight. You need to truly delight in this work to be diligent missionaries." Have you ever thought of that? Have you ever stepped back and looked at the things you put all your time into, and asked yourself if you truly delight in them? You might be very dedicated to your job or studies or some aspect of your life, but if you do not enjoy it and delight in the process then you are not being diligent and we need to be diligent brothers and sisters. Heavenly Father did not send us here to be miserable. This life is meant to be a joy and a delight. It is meant to be amazing!! I think it is pretty amazing. I delight in this work. There is no place I would rather be! Spend time with your families! Delight in their successes and be a diligent father, mother, brother, sister, son, or daughter to those you love. Delight in the Lord and delight in your life. Cherish every moment and love what you do. If you do not you will be miserable truly, and the things of the world, when they beat down upon you, will go for your attitude first because that is where you will be lacking. If we are not happy day by day, then the adversary's temptations can be overbearing and you start to wonder why you do what you do. You might be "dedicated" to your job but do you delight in it. Many marriages I have seen in Japan get ruined because the father gets so caught up in his job to support his family that he loses himself in it and in turn them. He did not delight in his job. He would return from work without the desire to spend every second he could with his family. But set his thoughts on another day of work. Please do not do so. As I strive to delight in the work, that is where I find miracles and joy. I love you all so much. Have an awesome week! Delight in your week!! Keep your feet on the path, your hands on the rod, and keep your eyes on Christ!

Love, 

Elder Trevor Aiken