What Would You Give Up?

So, the girl's night was a success! We had a lot of fun. Only 3 girls came but.. I think after my long recovery that's probably all I could have handled (we stayed up tooo late. Haha.) While two of them showed up and we were waiting for the other we just hung out and ate pizza and the bomb.com texas chili! that me and Jonathan made the other day. It's soooooo divine! Seriously. Even my siblings in Alaska who hate chili liked this kind. And so did the friends down here. And my dad who makes really good chili loves it too. ANYWAYS. :)

So we devoured that sucker. And the girls were very talkative and giggly. We talked, made my dirt cake that I made for munch and mingle in Fairbanks with the pudding, crushed oreo cookies, and gummy worms..and then had a "Spiritual hour" where we talked about the gospel and personal progress. I think the girls learned a lot. I taught them about prayer and about specific things that they can pray for, and just to make it sincere and thoughtful and realize that they are talking to Heavenly Father, and that he listens and cares. And then in personal progress I helped one of the girls get signed off on an experience as well as teaching them all about divine qualities of mothers and how strengthening the principle of faith in God can help them teach their future children the other gospel principles, like forgiveness, repentance, reading the scriptures, developing a personal relationship with God and Christ through consistent prayer and other things. And I was also helping them relate the stories of the book of Mormon and helped connect from Alma all the way to the 2,000 young warriers, and how their mothers taught the young sons of Helaman, that if they did not doubt God, He would deliver them. It was pretty cool cause although they were WAY giggly, and at times I thought they weren't paying attention at all, at the end the one girl said she actually learned a lot. So I felt pretty good. That's basically all I wanted. To teach them something, and be a good example. They're all really good girls (12/13 yo) with budding testimonies. I believe they have divine potential to be really honorable ladies.

But oh! Guess what! Tonight I get to puppysit for one of the girl's from young women. Just for a day. I'm really excited. I always tell Jonathan I want a puppy. And a baby. Haha.. working on that one. I really want my own family already ahha.. I guess a puppy will work for a day I suuuppoose.

Good news! We found out our local library lets us borrow movies for free. So we borrowed a bunch of PG movies haha. So that's pretty nice on our budget. Anyways.. random thought I guess. We had actually thought about giving PG-13 movies a second chance..and just using good judgement about movies.. but then we watched Batman Begins and the Dark Knight.. and I realized and asked Jonathan where we drew the line with PG13 movies.. like, the kind I like to watch lol.. cough.. Lord of the Rings. So it both kind of opened our eyes that if we give in to some, we are more likely to give in to all. And to get rid of any temptation we went back to only watching PG movies.. cause those are cleaner.
It's weird cause it's such a little thing, but at times can seem like such a big sacrifice.. especially the movies you love to see. But.. the thing that I always remember is King Lamoni's father.. who tells Heavenly Father.. that he would give all his sins away to know (Thee) him (Alma 22:18). And I know that his situation was a little bit more serious.. and that these are just movies.. but I am willing to do what it takes to get closer to God. And I know the more I sacrifice just the little things, the easier it will be to sacrifice greater things. Like Elder Bruce R. McConkie said, "Sacrifice.. is the crowning test of the gospel" and I believe it.

Anyways, just food for thought. PS. I love 3Nephi. I think when I finish the Book of Mormon I'm going to study 3Nephi a few more times and just drink in the words of Christ. It is, after all, the best part of the whole book. :)

Well, I love and miss you all! Happy Monday.

Anna Hernandez <3