Email November 9, 2015

Email November 9, 2015 – Elder Kenneth William Burton

Bunch of Burtons

I love it when you get to the beginning of a new week and just feel ready. No idea what it will bring, but you feel happy with the way things are going and look to the future with hope. Isn't the gospel great!

The scripture I'm ponderizing this week is Moroni 10:32 "Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind, and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God."

My purpose has been on my mind recently. "To invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end." To invite others to come unto Christ.

I believe its the same purpose everywhere. As a missionary. As a district leader. Sister training leader. Zone leader. Assistant. President. Bishop. Primary teacher. Deacons quorum councilor. Parent. Child. There are many things outside of our control, all we can do is come unto Christ and invite those around us to do the same.

 Going off my thought from last week that there is indeed a devil who is trying to cause us to be miserable like unto himself. It's evident that he has been working long and hard against the children of God. His main purpose is to turn us away from the Savior. Yet if he can get us distracted by other "problems" then we'll quickly forget our main purpose. There's a great example in the movie Bugs Life. There was the scene when the ants were bringing the food into the colony and a leaf falls out of the sky landing in the middle of the path. The ants started freaking out not knowing what to do because now they couldn't see the path, they were focusing on this giant leaf in front of them. They forgot where their end goal was because they were staring at the leaf. Where if they had just looked up and forward they may have seen the way around. One of my favorite quotes says, "the reason most people fail instead of succeed is that they trade what they want most for what they want at the moment." So true! I've seen that so much in myself. You start a diet and it fails because right in the moment you wanted that cake. We forget Christ because right in that moment we were worried about something else that seemed so important.

That's when we need to humble ourselves, continually turning back to him. (Ether 12:27)

I've been trying to remember my purpose or end goal as I prepare for district meetings and training. Its hard, but I have seen the Lord helping me become more aware of my focus as I've been relying on him. That's why this week for my ponderizing scripture I chose Moroni 10:32.

A lots been happening here in Horsens, its exciting to see. We're doing a tone of finding, and its been paying off. We have a few good lessons set up with new investigators so we'll see what happens.

Hope you all have a great week!

Meget Kærlighed,

Elder Kenneth Burton