Monday, May 22, 2017

This week was a little bit hard. Danny and Kiara didn't keep their appointments or come to church. She's very indecisive and it's quite hard to work with. I feel like I've lived a fairly structured life and it's very difficult for me to work with people who have no sense of planning ahead or keeping a commitment. We did get to teach Ganesh at President's home which was amazing! He's getting baptized on June 10th, but pray hard for him because he needs to tell his Hindu parents and they're not going to like it at all. (Breaking with culture isn't easy). Oh, and we had dinner with this amazing family named the Wingfields. They're the best people ever! She's like super dry Mormon; has read all of the standard works, watches conference every six months, been to church a ton. The only problem is her husband doesn't really dig the church too much so that's a pretty big road block. But her and her kids are the best! They'll definitely be members one day. 

I shared some thoughts about Mosiah 5 last week and I liked the input. One other thought I had is if you look at the context of the chapter, it's right as Mosiah is about to be made king. Two ideas came to me from that; 1st) Mosiah repeatedly tells his people to humble themselves and then repent. (You can see that a lot Chapter 4), and Alma teaches the same doctrine in Alma 13:13. This is what I feel is meant when Lehi describes the people falling down at the tree of life. The allusion to 'fruit' in Alma 13:13 would suggest that as well. Now with that in mind 2nd thought: a Cherubim and Flaming sword guard the tree of life. King Benjamin's speech is purposed towards helping them partake of the fruit and receive eternal life. The cherubim represent the prophets and priesthood holders that perform the ordinances necessary to obtain the tree and the flaming sword is the cleansing power of the Holy Ghost. Exaltation is sometimes referred to as receiving a crown of immortality, and Benjamin is preparing his people to enter the temple to make further covenants towards exaltation (it even uses the words "let Christ seal you his") or in other words covenant to receive crowns.  When a king is crowned or coronated back in the old days, they had some dude with a sword (flaming sword?) do the thing where they put the sword on one shoulder and the other. The guy who did the coronation was like a king or a duke or priest or something (a cherubim) and he had authority to give the new king rulership. So as we're being cleansed by the sprit through ordinances like the Sacrament, we're in the process of being coronated to receive our crown of eternal life. So much symbolism in the scriptures. 

Not much fun today, just followed Elder Hampshire around the mall and realized how terrible modern society and culture is. Elder Hampshire and I are getting along great! 

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