Life Takes Some Fixing

A few days ago Sister Punaa and I were headed to Santa Rosa for our all mission conference. We were really excited! We made it there safe and sound. We had a wonderful conference filled with love, the spirit, and the joy of celebrating Christ's birth.

After conferences like that you feel so inspired, and are anxious to go out and share the wonderful message of our Savior Jesus Christ with the world. Which we were. Well our excitment came to a jolting hault when we were informed, "Sister's did you know your car has a flat tire?" Of course our response was, "no???" We rushed outside to find our car was tilting to one side.

Isn't that the same with life? Sometimes we are just so ready to move forward and continue on. But we realize we are stuck and we have to fix something before we can keep on going.

In life there is such things as 'quick fixes.' But those fixes only last for so long. Such as the spare tire Elder Jenkins and Elder Tomoser so kindly put on for us. The spare tire was great! A life savor really. But it would only last for so long before we needed to get a new permanent tire.

We will make mistakes in life. It's only human. But if we don't fix them properly eventually we are going to get to a point where we can't move at all. We are helpless. And we are, that is all helpless without the Atonement of Jesus Christ. In Mosiah chapter 4. King Benjamin teaches..

 "...as ye have come to the knowledge of the glory of God, or if ye have known of his goodness and have tasted of his love, and have received a remission of your sins, which causeth such exceedingly great joy in your souls, even so I would that ye should remember, and always retain in remembrance, the greatness of God, and your own nothingness, and his goodness and long-suffering towards you, unworthy creatures, and humble yourselves even in the depths of humility, calling on the name of the Lord daily, and standing steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come, which was spoken by the mouth of the angel. And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true."

Christ can and will heal us. He knows how. He is all powerful. He has all knowledge. He can do what we cannot do. Just as Sister Punaa and I had no idea how to fix our tire. We had to turn to someone who knew how. If we hadn't and would have just drove along we wouldn't have gotten very far until we had even more problems than what we started with.

I know Christ lives. He loves us. And I know that His Atonement fixes all pain.

-Marco's Conversion-

I come from a large family of Catholics, there's twelve of us to be exact. The youngest being 22 and the oldest 53, myself being the second youngest. As you can see, the youngest of us are separated by a whole different generation then the oldest of my siblings and by being so there's an anvantage that comes with it. That being that as a much younger sibling I get to sit back and looked/look at how my older brothers and sisters live their lives as parents and even grandparents, who do not have the fullness of the Gospel and their lives. As I looked at the limited happiness in their lives and how they raised/raise their children, I saw a glimpse of myself as a father and I didn't want that kind of life for me and my future family. Therefore, I began the task of looking for our Heavenly Father, who is always there for all of us but that up untill then I refused to accept him into my life.

Coming from a Catholic family I was always taught as a child not to open the door on people from other religions, however, I always thought that to be disrespecful and uneducated. So one day two elders came by and nocked on my door, and thankfully I was there to open the door on them and from then on my life is changed for the better: They both had a big smile on their face and they both seemed really happy, and that was my first impression of them. They asked me if I had afew minutes of my time to talk to me alittle about the book of Mormom and I happily accepted. They told me alittle bit about it and right away they asked me if I wanted to get baptized, which at first it took me by surprise and I responded "I'm already baptized." So they explained to me how the LDS Church truely does have the fullness of the Gospel and why it is important to get baptized in it. To which I responded that "I'd think about it", they gave me a book of Mormon and asked me if it'd be ok if they came by sometime. I agreed, however, for two to three weeks I didn't read the book and I avoided them.

Untill finaly they did come by and talked to me alittle more about the Gospel and how the LDS Church does things. I enjoyed our session and started reading the book of Mormom, and about two or three weeks after that I attended church for the first time. I was surprised at how happy people seemed to be and that first day although I enjoyed the talks and Sacrament meeting, 3 hours seemed alittle long coming from a church in which you attend for just one hour (not that I went much). That was only the first day, from then on I've enjoyed every minute of it. I'm glad I made the choice to read the book of Mormon, come to Church and most of all, get Baptized! I was told by my wonderful Missionaries that in the future when I looked back to how I used to view life, I'd be able to see a difference in my life after getting baptized. But honestly I've seen a great change in my life since I started coming to church and I'm grateful for my Missionaries, my new friends, our Church leaders but most of all for our precious Gospel. I'm grateful for our savior Jesus Christ who atoned for our sins so that we could have a chace to live with our Heavenly Father again and I know I want to be more like him and be the best I can possibly be.

-Marco