What up my Americans! I hope all is well!

To start off today, I would like to share a quote from a wonderful man in the branch that I'm in, here in Narooma. "If you look to close, you won't be able to see the forest through the trees" -Tim Adcock. I love this quote, it really got me thinking. If we look to closely and only focus on one thing, we'll miss the big picture! Life won't always go our way and it can be easy to focus on the bad things and all that weighs down on us, but if we're able to take a step back, zoom your lens out just a little, you will be able to see the big picture and see the blessings that can come from that experience, you will see how much you can grow.

This week has been a tough one, we didn't have the opportunity to teach a whole lot, but we did get to learn a lot! We had district and zone conference where we get to learn from our local church leaders how to be better people and continue to improve ourselves. I took about four pages of notes so I learned heaps! Here's some of the things that I learned:

Attitude is everything. Whether it be for church, school, or just around the neighborhood, your attitude will decide how you handle it. If you attend church because you have to, because mom makes you, then you will not get anything from it. If you do homework for school just to fly through it, you will not learn as much as you could. If you're giving service to the nice old lady down the street because mom won't let you play the XBOX until you mow her lawn. The nice old lady is going to know that you don't care about her and that will have a lasting impression on her AND you will not learn from your experience. Have the mental ability to change your mindset so you can best learn and grow from everything that you do.

We must take action. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we talk about doing a lot of things; Missionary work, service, attending the temple, family history work, reading our scriptures, praying every day and night. It's great that we mentally have those goals, but talking about it isn't going to accomplish anything! If you are having a hard time reading your scriptures at night, don't just pray and tell Heavenly Father you'll do better tomorrow. Fix the problem and take small steps to do it! Nike says it best, "JUST DO IT!"

We are always changing. We are either changing for the better or for the worse. There is no such thing as staying still. Make sure you are being changed for the better.

In Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life in 1 Nephi, he talks about how he wanted everyone to make it to the tree so they could partake of the fruit of that tree. One thing that people don't realize is that it doesn't stop at taking the fruit. Some people fell away even after they tasted of God's love. Just because you have reached the tree and was lucky enough to taste of the fruit, doesn't mean it's over and you're good to go. We all need to endure to the end and help others come closer to Christ so they can feel God's love for them.

The last thing I want to share with you is that you matter. You matter to me, you matter to your family, you matter to your friends, but most importantly you matter to God. God loves you and cares about you at such a high level we can't even comprehend or fully appreciate it. We will all have trials in life and sometimes we will fall. But the wonderful thing is that God will love us no matter what. If we do our best and never give up, continuing to show our love to God, he will receive you with open arms. Everything that happens, happens for a reason. He will NEVER let you down.

I love you all so much!

Elder Macfarlane