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Talking about missionary work can bring to some people good memories from their missions. Personally, missionary work brings to my mind the many people that have never heard of the Gospel. Nations like China and India have roughly 1.3 billion people as of 2017 on each country. That’s around 2.6 or 2.7 billion people. They alone account for a little bit more than 1/3 of the world’s population. What can we do to help the full-time missionaries spread the gospel so that our neighbors, friends, coworkers, and even people from other parts of the world and be introduced to the gospel? Being a missionary does not man that we will devote 24 hours to the preaching of the gospel, it means that in every opportunity we have we should share it no matter if the people accept it or not. We should be engaged on doing good things and being a light to the world. DyC 58:27 The gathering of Israel will be done with or without us, we are being given the opportunity to be part of that gathering because it will bring joy, happiness, fulfillment, and the feeling that we are building the kingdom of God. As we build it, we build ourselves, we become better people, the eyes of our understanding will open to having a better perspective of what the eternal life will be like. We can start preparing by reading the following. Alma 17:1-13 In the times of the Book of Mormon, there was no such thing as being a good example to the Lamanites because for the most part, the Nephites tried to be a good example, they had to be brave and preach openly. There are people that do not share the gospel because they have anxiety, my wife is one of those people. Others are plane shy or have any other condition that does not permit them do it, others are just lazy. Sharing the gospel does not mean that we will give a lesson like full-time missionaries do, it means that we will be the best example possible to others and will be worthy of the spirit. This last means the spirit will help us discern if we should vocally share something. We are not required to do what the Nephites did, but our example and testimony can be powerful enough to gather Israel. 3 Nephi 20:12-31

Paraphrasing Amos 3:7 the Lord says that he will do nothing but to reveal his secrets to his prophets, why would it be like this? The Lord glorifies himself on having a perfect line of communication between his church and the people he chooses to guide it. Prophets warn and exhort us to repent. In 2 Nephi 25:9 we read that the Lord has always warned people through his prophets. Some things do not change that easy, when we are thriving and prospering, we tend to forget to be humble and help others. This is the natural man, nations like the Nephites forgot this and became even worse than the Lamanites at some point Jacob 3:3. They were all invited to repent, they had their chance. Similarly, the Lord is constantly warning us about the consequences of sin. It may not come in the shape of earthquakes, meteors, etc. but they can be because we were drunk, and we crashed and died. They lead the way so that we will know what God wants us to learn, do, and remember. When we do not pay attention to this, we may feel like nothing has changed in our lives, that we are still happy but when trials come, we remember that there is someone that we can turn to. Prophets do not teach that what it is good of us but that what it is best for us. Being apathetic to their words is nothing but being spiritually dead. 2 Nephi 9:39 The Lord blesses every time we obey, and this is also true concerning prophets. For example, when they command us to do or stop doing certain things, is not their will but the Lord’s. We are promised that we will prosper as we try our best to be obedient to his commandments, who does not want to prosper? Mosiah 2:22 General Conference is the best place to show we are willing to sustain a prophet. What does sustain the prophet mean? On October 5, 2014 the now prophet Russell M Nelson said, “it means standing behind the prophet, praying for him, defending his good name and striving to carry out the instructions he gives as directed by the Lord.” Do you have a good experience from obeying what the prophet says we should do?? Please share it!! I would love to know about it!

God wants us to go back home, to be in his presence, to live with him forever. He sent Jesus Christ to perform the ultimate sacrifice so that we would have a way to take the decision to want to go back to his presence. Through the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, we will rise from the tomb and conquer death, disease, illnesses, and every aspect of mortality once and for all. The atonement has such great power in every person’s life that can transform us from bad to good and from good to better, it can also help us heal when we are hurt and forgive to those that hurt us. Through the atonement, the prophet Joseph Smith was delivered many times from the hands of his enemies. We can also put off the natural man and be more pure and worthy of the blessings we are entitled to. The Prophet Russell M Nelson has said “in coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.” How do we improve spiritually? Primarily, by being worthy of the spirit who will guide us, we should pray to the Lord that his atonement will cleanses us. We have been given the opportunity to come down to earth and receive a body through which we should learn from mistakes and improve, it is a time for probation to see if we will follow God’s commandments. It is up to us what actions we take to each problem or decision we choose. One day, the Lord will call us to be judged by our actions, thoughts, words, etc. Alma42:4 Is it possible that God will point his finger at us saying that we did things wrong? Maybe, the following is my personal belief: I think that on that day, the only judge that we will receive is from ourselves. We will have a perfect memory of all our life knowing that we are before a perfect and pure being (God), therefore, we will judge ourselves according to the life we chose to live here. Let us celebrate that we are still alive, that we can change and improve our lives. The Lord will help us out on the way if we are faithful.

Faith is the combination of both believing and acting. We can improve our believing by improving our acting. Here is an example, our grades on school will not improve if we do not do our homework, participation, etc. These are all things that we need to act on, we can certainly believe that they can be done but it is not until we put ourselves to work that they get done. Similarly, doing nothing and hoping that Heavenly Father will answer our prayers and bless us will not work. It is not because he does not want to bless us but because he is restricted from doing so. It takes our obedience and discipline. Sometimes, we may think that it takes strict obedience to follow all his commandments when we should be focusing on doing our very best not expecting perfection. Our faith only grows when we do things to please God with humble hearts and knowing that he has all power to help us in our daily trials, it makes us stronger, and it will also help us in times of darkness and give us hope when everything looks lost. Ether 12:4 We can show we are humble by repenting. Repenting covers admitting that the Lord will be merciful with us if we try to change our lives and start over, he does not measure his love towards us for the sins we commit, rather, he loves us all and expects that we will turn to him for help. A time will come where if we do not repent, we will not be considered worthy for the Kingdom of God. Today is the day where we need to start our individual repenting process, there is a reason why we are still alive. Alma 34:33 God knows we will make mistakes, this is a time of probation and nobody excepting Christ was without sin. Who has not had a bad thought? Who has not said something inappropriate? Everyone at some point in our lives, realize we are doing things wrong. The voice of the spirit is there to warn us, guide us, and teaches what we should do. Have we ever felt remorse or guilt because of something we have said, or done? If so, it is a good reminder that we might need to admit, do some restitution, ask for forgiveness to whomever we offended or caused pain, ask in sincere prayer for forgiveness and lastly, trying to avoid doing the same thing over, and over again. Sinning is not the problem, not changing is. Ether 12:27

The creation of the world was necessary for humanity to be born and have experiences of their own. The Lord created bodies for Adam and Eve, they saw him, they walked with him, they did not need anything because they did not have a purpose. They could not distinguish evil from good, they were even naked and did not know about it. They were INNOCENT. We do not know how long they were in that state, but we do know that they could not open the gates for us to be born. Not until the serpent fooled Eve to eat the fruit of the three of good and evil. The serpent told Eve “Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” Genesis 3:4-5. This was half a truth and half a lie, she did not die right away, but she became mortal knowing good and evil. The same happened to Adam once he ate of the fruit. Because of this, they were cast out of the Garden of Eden, and were not allowed to go back to it. They were commanded to work in order to eat, and to multiply and replenish the earth. At this point, many people would think that Satan’s was successful in his plan to make Adam and Eve fall and disobey God, the truth is that there was no other way for them to have children, they were immortal. It is true that humanity found themselves in a fallen state from which only Christ could get us out of. In the current state of humanity, man was away from God, only selected people such as prophets could see him and guide the people with the Lord’s help. Christ’s atonement helps us redeem from the fall and his effects on us. Furthermore, it helps us to be able to return to him and live with him once more through covenants and our obedience to his laws. 2 Nephi 9:6-12 The fall of Adam and Eve was not something we should blame them for, we should be grateful they fell. Without it, the Plan of Salvation would have been frustrated and no one could have ever been born. We would have never had the privilege to see the wonderful creations that are on earth or experience the company of the people we now cherish and love.