March 24, 2015

So I had a fun week back in St. Pierre.  For this week I just wanted to share two stories with you.  The first is about the process of repentance. Repentance is one of the major teachings that Christ taught during his earthly mission and that every prophet that has ever been called by him has preached.  It is a process with five steps that helps us to recognize and regret mistakes that we have made (in religious terms I would say sins that we have committed or things that we have done contrary to the commandments of God), ask God for forgiveness in a prayer, repair any damage we may have done, and then to abandon or change the action that was not good in order to become better.  Often as members of the church we think about repentance as being for "big sins" like stealing, but it is for every little thing that we would like to change about ourselves and it is possible thanks to the infinite sacrifice that our Savior Jesus Christ made (Alma 34:9-10) in taking upon him our sins and weaknesses, dying on the cross, and being resurrected. 

      I got to put this to the test in sort of a funny way this past Thursday.  We had walked to an investigators house in Terre Sainte for a lesson, and as we were walking back up the hill I was eating an orange that I had cut before leaving the house (I like my mother never leave the house without preparing a little pick nick because I always get hungry;).  I normally toss my peels to the side in a bush because they are biodegradable and my conscience feels alright with this.  Then we passed by a trash can that was open and I threw my peel in and kept walking.  For some reason I looked back and realized that the can didn’t have a lid which meant that I couldn’t determine whether it was for recycling or garbage (the lids are color-coded here) .  I felt sort of guilty thinking that it may have been for recycling but I tried to justify myself in thinking that it may well have been for the garbage.  We kept walking and I thought "I’ll just do better next time." but then I thought "no!  If I did something wrong I need to fix it because that is one of the steps and I would be stupid to have that on my conscience when the way to repair what I had done was so simple.”  Just then Sister Woods and Sister Liu stopped to talk with a man waxing his car.  I set my bag down and made a sign to them to say "give me a minute" and ran back down the street to fish back out my orange peel.  I am sure that I looked crazy and my companions had a good laugh but I felt so much better afterwards and know that it is this same peace that we can feel each time we follow these five inspired steps that the savior taught, whether it be for a big mistake or a little. 

Anyways, I ran out of time again, but know that I am doing well, that I got my stiches out on Sunday at church by a brother who happens to be a doctor:)  have a great week!

Love, Sister Wilson