Sunday Productivity

Today was probably one of the best Sundays I've had in a long time. I found out which ward I was supposed to go to, and had a great sacrament meeting and sunday school. A speaker I really liked was the stake president of the area (I don't remember his name), and he gave a talk on how faith is different and personal for everyone.

He explained that water was special to Moses, and that's why so many miracles were related to water when God helped Moses. (Parting of the Red Sea, Turning the River into blood, hitting the rock and having water come out, etc). Faith is different for everyone and is personal for everyone, just like the Atonement.

In Sunday School, I got to have a discussion about D&C 79 and 80, which were directions given by God to some missionaries.

One part that really stuck out to me and the group was D&C 80:3, which reads: 

Wherefore, go ye and preach my gospel, whether to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west, it mattereth not, for ye cannot go amiss.  

It enlightened me and the class that if we do what is right, it doesn't matter where we go, all that matters is how we accomplish God's work.
Another thing I liked that someone said: To increase the appreciation for God, try eating a Jolly Rancher and pray until it is gone.

After church, I decided to make a Discord channel with my friends to talk and discuss spiritual things and scriptures. It was FANTASTIC! We all shared personal experiences and even helped Suri clear up her questions about Laman and Lemuel, and we all talked about miracles that happened to us. Something I really liked that Hannah Jensen mentioned (a friend of hers from FSY said this):

Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less.

Absolutely genius.  
We also discussed why miracles work for those who are faithful and don't for those who are faithless. I came up with a really good analogy that people found useful:

People who are successful and work hard are akin to the faithful. When someone who works hard receives a scholarship or gift, they use it for good and to help themselves improve and also for others to improve. The same goes for those who are faithful. Miracles are like those gifts or scholarships: they will help people who already work hard. But let's say someone doesn't work hard, and they receive a gift, perhaps winning a sweepstakes for a large sum of money. People who don't work at their lives will end up spending all the money and not using it properly. The same can be said for those who do not work on their relationship with God. Miracles may temporarily help them, but they won't increase their testimony because they lack the willingness to build it. 

After our devotional was over, I found out that Lucy was in Utah! So she came over and we went hiking. We hiked for about 10 minutes, then sat down on a rock and recorded a 40 minute video for Suri talking about the Temple, endowments and other important things. It went into the Mission Capsule. 

When we weren't recording the video for Suri, we were on FaceTime with her, and we had a lot of fun just hanging out with friends. The hike was gorgeous! The sunset was amazing, and we made sure multiple times during the video to record and show Suri the sunset. It was super cool. At first, Lucy and I wanted to hike all the way to the top of Y mountain, but we realized (well, I realized) that Lucy only had sandals on and we only had one bottle of water total. So instead we just chilled for like an hour, and took some more photos. After we were done recording the video, we hiked back to Lucy's car and I tried to teach her how to Ripstik. (emphasis on tried to).