'Tis (Kind Of?) The Season

This week was great! I feel like our ward members really clicked with the missionaries this week. Our ward is so awesome! 

We had a BOMB zone conference this week too, which was awesome. It was really motivating and spirit-filled. Our mission is the best in the world :)

Spanish is going well, my comprehension has really gone up since I've gotten here, and I feel like my accent is slowly getting better. Its hard to tell. Every day I feel honored to be able to have conversations with people in their language. Its such a blessing. 

Speaking of blessings, my trainer has been making me lead more lessons, phone calls, contacts, etc. I have really felt the growth, and now I like phone calls? So prayer really does work. You ask for help, you get it! At least in this case. 

SPIRITUAL RANT WARNING: I've been learning a lot about humility and pride in my studies and its been very enlightening. I'm going to rant so SKIP to the pictures IF you don't want a Kung Fu Panda metaphor about pride. So basically, I feel like the general perception of pride is high confidence or awareness of your strengths, and humility is bringing yourself down or denying your strengths (at least out loud). BUT. Humility is really just putting Heavenly Fathers will above yours and acknowledging his hand in all you do. So if you have a strength, its from God, and therefore you shouldn't try to put it down. Allow me to demonstrate the difference between pride and self confidence, and how one is truly divine while the other stems from the natural man. 

In Kung Fu Panda, Po spends the whole movie training to be worthy of the secret of the scroll. He gets it and turns out the most empowering secret in the universe is your divine identity. He realizes he's got all the potential and power as himself and that there is no secret ingredient. This gives him the confidence he needs to beat the guy that the 5 best Kung fu masters in the area couldnt beat, Tai Lung the leopard. 

Tai Lung, however, spends the whole movie also trying to get the scroll. But why? He's looking for affirmation from an outside source. He asks Shifu to "tell me how proud you are" and felt entitled to the scroll. When he eventually saw the blank scroll, he couldn't understand how it was empowering. His self confidence was so low and his self perception was so based in pride and outward recognition that his ideals shattered. He proceeded to fail. In self confidence vs. Pride, self confidence will always win. 

But ironically, self confidence comes from God, not us. True confidence comes from our divine identity, origin, and potential, and God-given gifts and strengths. Not only that, but the knowledge that you can overcome all your weaknesses through the Atonement of Jesus Christ has got to be one of the most empowering things I've ever heard. Humility takes away the victim mindset that Tai Lung was in, empowers those who understand and embody it while not raising them above others, and also prevents impostor syndrome. 

RANT OVER: SORRY

I have literally one picture, also zone gatorball is the superior sport

Until next time, 

Alia