Goodness

God is good, so good. My Jamaican friends back in Gloucester used to love saying that (I'm sure they still do, as a matter of fact). It’s so true, He is so good. 

Today was actually beautiful weather, so my companion and I cycled up to a reservoir a bit north of town and went for a nice walk through the woods around it. It was awesome - totally beautiful! We saw some people jumping in the river to go kayaking and I wished I could hop on with them. That's okay though. 

Sometimes on Mondays I sit down to email and wonder what I have done in the last week. It’s not because I've done nothing. Every single day we do our best to spend every moment of our time giving the most efficient, effective service we can to God and His children (although we are very very far from perfect). It could be just because time is flying by and everything is blurring together. When people ask me how long I have been on my mission I have to pause and think a second before stammering out "almost 8 months now." Has it been that long? It’s really 1/3 over already. I can't waste a minute, it’s going by too fast. It makes me feel so bad for any time I may have had a bad day and missed an opportunity to talk to someone I should have or anything like that. 

All 4 elders in the ward spoke in sacrament meeting yesterday--that was fun. I talked about how awesome the Book of Mormon is, using some of the same elements as I did in my farewell talk (including my rewriting of the scripture of Nephi killing Laban into modern terms for those of you who remember that). I felt that I was able to really connect with the congregation, and bring the Spirit into the room as I shared my feelings with them. The Spirit is awesome. 

Yesterday Alex was ordained a deacon by a member of our bishopric, then his deacons quorum president taught him how to pass the sacrament so that he could do it in sacrament meeting. He did. What an amazing kid. I'm so glad we ran into him on the street 3 months ago. Looking back on my time here in Llanelli, especially my first transfer here with Elder Gull, we spent so much time talking to people, teaching people, serving people, who did not progress at all or who did so very little before stopping. But without doing all that work we never would have had Alex and his family. His mum should be baptized soon, but she still needs to overcome her obstacles of drinking and smoking and overall poor health. But with the Lord's help, she can do it. God is so good. 

After church I had the opportunity to give a blessing to a member of our ward who was feeling ill. The Spirit of God came upon me and some things came out of my mouth that I never would have expected. Part of the counsel given in the blessing, however, was that the things that were revealed should be kept very sacred, and only shared if guided by the Holy Spirit to do so. 

I am so glad that I was able to be a worthy vessel of the Lord in passing His blessing on to one of His children. Very few people will ever hear about this blessing, but I am confident that because I acted by the spirit, I did exactly as God would have had me do in that situation, making what was done just as amazing as any of the miracles in the scriptures. My point is not to boast, but to let you know that you can do it too! You don't even have to hold the Priesthood. The requirements for exercising the power of the priesthood and for having the right to being guided by the Spirit are pretty much the same anyway. But know that when you follow what the Spirit tells you to do in serving others, you are acting for God in ministering to His children. And that is pretty amazing. So don't waste any time--go follow the spirit in serving others. Its the way to be happy. 

Love,

Elder Seth Poulsen