Stay out of the "shade"!

Ben's baptism!

     It was such an amazing experience this week to be able to stand in the circle and confirm our investigator Ben a member on my 10 month mark. It was such a spiritual moment for me. I loved it. Also, being able to sing at his baptism was such an amazing experience for me and I loved that moment. 

     This week was such a great week with so many experiences. One of which was when I was walking down the street and walked past a place that was selling baked yams and it was so natsukashi (nostalgic). It reminded me of my mom's candied yams soooo much. It was a good smell but I did not get it. But what I did get could not be stopped. The temptation to eat it was too powerful. It is a waffle in the shape of a fish, that is filled with custard cream and is lightly coated with powdered sugar. Good gravy it was like Christmas morning! So good! I am not going to say that I had two but I am not going to say that I did not have two if you know what I mean. But anyway,  it was a great week with the temple, a baptism, and really good food!

     This week we had a great opportunity to work with many different people in many different cultures and there is one thing that I learned and connected to a talk I had read earlier last week that, "a distraction doesn’t have to be evil to be effective--sometimes it can just be shade." As we talked with investigators and listened to their concerns, I recalled upon my own life before my mission and realized how many things we do that do not seem wrong. In the story from the talk, (I cannot remember the name sorry) when cows are being corralled down a hot dusty road, they will wander off the sides to the pleasing shade of the trees to get out of the hot sun. How many times in our lives do we do things that seem harmless and are not evil. They are not sin, just getting some shade from the heat of the day or the stress of the world. Sleeping in a little bit on Sundays because the week was so hard. Listening to music all the time to reduce stress and losing time to listen to the spirit. Avoiding family members or other people because you need time alone and you do not want to talk. Sleeping, listening to music, or being alone are not bad things at all! We do them all the time! (Unless you're a missionary because you cannot be alone). But those things if used in abundance or in situations or circumstances where they do not belong, such as Sunday mornings or whatever it may be, harm us in unseen ways. They are not in the slightest evil, however, Satan uses shade to lead to the total darkness. If you miss one Sunday it is a million times easier to miss again. If the music you listen to is inappropriate or loud, you lose the chance to have quite moments to have the spirit to be with you. Yet sometimes we think we do have other quiet moments which are really idol moments. We see them as so harmless to just have some time alone all the time. But Satan uses that time to fill an empty stage in our mind with bad thoughts or temptations. He loves idol hands.  I plead with you to avoid the shady things. Life is hard, no doubt about it. But if we just stay on the path, even though sometimes the sun is blaring down, it will be a perfect happiness that awaits us at the other side at the end of the road. I love you all so much and I hope you have the best week ever! Look for shade in your life. Find the light. I pray that we all can do so. 

Love,

Elder Trevor Aiken