District Council Dancing

This week I took a pause on studying the different commandments. I focused a lot on faith and "Building our Boat."

In 1 Nephi 17, Nephi is commanded to build a boat "after the manner which [God] shall show [him]." I love this chapter, how it uses vocabulary that makes us think about water, like "wade through much affliction." I remembered the saying... I'm gonna butcher it but... the boat won't sink unless you let the water in. And how did Nephi build his boat? By keeping the commandments of God! Our Boat is our relationship ans testimony of Jesus Christ. When we build our boat, we may still be in an oceans worth of affliction, but we will be floating on top. In verse 8 it says, "Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters." When we build our boats... well ships (we don't want a wee fishing boat that a wave can flip over) we will be able to travel through life and make it to our final destination which is to live with our Heavenly Father again.

But how can we build our ships in the way that God wants us to? Well I thought of a few things...

1. Spirit over Body- its the strength of our spirit that matters, yes we should take care of our bodies, but it's our spirit that needs to do the heavy lifting! The world puts so much pressure on our bodies, and how we look, but God focuses on the inside.

2. Faith- President Russell M. Nelson says it way better than me... read his talk "Christ is Risen: Faith in him will move mountains." I love this talk, it inspires me to do more, and try harder every time I read it! Jesus is the Master Carpenter, and he knows how we can become strong enough to withstand the storms of life.

This week Included a couple funny moments:

We had exchanges on Tuesday morning, and Sister Smith got to bike a ton with me! Sometimes I forget about crazy Texas weather and how it's never predictable. One moment we were biking and literally sweating so much, and a minute later it was raining cats and dogs and hailing...we got soaked. It was really fun, kinda scary to bike... but fun! And just as fast as it came, right after we found some shelter... it stopped. Sister Smith was a champ though, she was still the happiest person! 

I was asked to give a training in District Council... about goals. I was focusing on the importance of planning and so I thought of a fun activity. We had a set of elders leave the room for a minute and we set up a goal that they needed to achieve. After deliberating for a couple minutes an elder decided that they need to do the whip and nae nae...so that's what we went with. They came back in and we told them that they needed to dance, but we had a specific one in mind and we couldn't tell them. Immediately it got serious haha- the suit jacket came off. We saw the worm, disco, waltzing, kick line... and then one of the elders remembered that the elder was obsessed with the whip and nae nae... so they guessed it. But it was the most entertaining thing of my week.

My question of the week is: How can you build your boat this week?