Week 87, February 29, 2016 "Time flies when you are having fun and serving the Lord!"

     New transfer brings a new companion I guess. I am stoked though. I actually told my new companion when we served in Seoul South Zone together that we would be comps at one point. I am a lot better at guessing than I thought I was. My new companion's name is Elder Sabey and I think he is in his 4th transfer so he is a young buck and will make me feel like an old fart only having 3 transfers left and all! Yeah you didn't read that wrong. I really do only have 3 transfers left which is crazy! I have said this too many times but man is it true; time flies when you are having fun and serving the Lord. I love Korea so much and am continuing to learn so much here. I am so glad I came out on a mission and do not regret it one bit. Sure it has been hard but man is it worth it! I never thought I could learn so much in just 2 years time. I will be staying in Pyeongtaek and will also be the new District Leader so that should be fun. I will probably be in Pyeongtaek until I die so this is the last ward I will be able to get tight with. All 3 of the wards I work with here are awesome. The Korean ward has a few American men that served in Korea that got married to Korean women so there are a bunch of mixed blood kids in our ward that speak both Korean and English. Abby and Ola are doing great and are still on date to get baptized on March 13th. Yeah overall my week was a great one! 

        The message we shared a lot this week was on loving others as ourselves. This is a very hard thing to do but man is it a really important thing to do. We are supposed to love our God with all the energy of our soul which seems to be the easy part. The real test is loving others as ourselves because when we do so we are actually truly showing God that we love Him by loving all of His children. Don't get me wrong sometimes it is hard to love people, especially ones who may not like you but that is no excuse. We are required to love all men. Not wanting to love is a desire that Satan puts in our hearts. It is when we don't want to love, when we are angry, frustrated, and so forth it is then that we are in Satan's grasp. Trying to justify by saying things like "It's just me, this is who I am and I can't change. etc" is wrong because that isn't true. Actually we are naturally born sons and daughters of God, born to have joy. How are we supposed to be happy and have joy if we aren't loving others and being happy?  Real joy comes from loving, being happy, and remembering where we come from and how we are children of God. I have came to know this more on my mission and continue to learn more of it each and every day. I still am not perfect at loving but I am trying which is the important thing. So let's all keep trying to love more and more each day. 

Love, 

Elder Picard