松鼠的比喻

I had one of the greatest teaching experiences of my whole life this week. We met with this amazing lady who has known the church her entire life. Her father bought a Book of Mormon in Taiwan over 30 years ago when she was in middle school. He said that he liked how disciplined the Mormon missionaries were, and how they didn't teach that other churches are going to hell. This lady has led her life by faith, though she may not recognize it. She said that one day she will definitely be baptized, and that when she is baptized it will be into no other church than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. But that for now she can't go against her husbands wishes and cannot give up coffee. I shared with her a scripture I've been thinking about a lot lately, Helamen 3：35 (I even saved a screenshot of it as my screensaver on my iPad to memorize it, so cool!). It teaches that if we pray and fast, we will grow stronger in our humility, and firmer in faith. That we will be purified because of our yielding our hearts to God. In the middle of our teaching, she stopped me and said, oh my friend is here! I thought we were going to have to leave! She opened the backdoor, knelt down, and fed this squirrel right out of her hand! I've never ever seen that before! She said she has a great love for animals, and that she has trained them to take from her very hands by gradually placing nuts closer and closer to her house. Perfect analogy! God is like the possessor of an endless supply of strength and nourishment. He reaches out and gives us blessings that we may not recognize as gifts from him. But as we pray to him and receive eyes to see, we learn to trust him. He makes requirements of us for our own good, like how sometimes she gives the squirrels medicine for their wounded bodies, but we learn to trust God even more if we just trust him and do it. I invited her to think to pray every time she feeds her friends. That is how faith grows, that is how we find lasting happiness. I'm tired of people's saying, I'm just too busy, or following Christ is too hard. It's the best choice you could ever make.