Being a Perfectionist vs Becoming Perfect in Christ

 I have been thinking a lot about doing my best lately. The constant debate in my mind has always been either I did not do that perfectly and I need to be perfect or I use the excuse I am not perfect, I can not be expected to be perfect, so why try. In short I found an article that I really want to share that was my answer to this question. For me though more important than the answer was the timing.

In the offices we are always doing something, and I mean always running around doing something that needs to be done to help the missionaries focuson the lords work. I was having a really hard day and well sometimes even though we are on the mission the mission offices is just like the office and can be very hard to feel the spirit. We had recently had been talking to president about how we do not have enough time to do all or our studies and it is hard. He told us we need to change our mindset and make it a priority.  This morning I had not had my personal study because we had to go get my Uruguyan ID card. and number very early in the morning and we did not have time to study.  In all the choas I decided I just needed about 30 minutes to have a my own personal and with everything going on the question of being perfect and doing my best was at the front of my mind and I found this article on the homepage of lds.org.  I can not describe 

https://www.lds.org/liahona/2014/07/young-adults/becoming-perfect-in-christ?lang=eng

For those of you who are short on time I am just going to paste the a few parts I really liked but I know Gods loves us and he answers prayers and through the atonement we can recieve the motivation to do better and our weaknesses can be filled through his mercy.


Hope you all enjoy and have a good day.

"As we act and are not acted upon (see 2 Nephi 2:14), we can navigate between complementary virtues and achieve much of life’s growth. These can appear in “an opposition,” being “a compound in one” (2 Nephi 2:11).

For example, we can cease to be idle (see D&C 88:124) without running faster than we have strength (see Mosiah 4:27).

We can be “anxiously engaged in a good cause” (D&C 58:27) while also periodically pausing to “be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10; see also D&C 101:16).

We can find our lives by losing our lives for the Savior’s sake (see Matthew 10:39; 16:25).

We can be “not weary in well-doing” (D&C 64:33; see also Galatians 6:9) while taking appropriate time to refresh spiritually and physically.

We can be lighthearted without being light-minded.

We can laugh heartily with but not haughtily at.

Our Savior and His Atonement invite us to “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him.” As we do so, He promises that His grace is “sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ” (Moroni 10:32).

For those burdened by cares to find perfection or to be perfect now, our Savior’s freely given atoning love assures us:

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

“… For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28, 30).^7"

Feeling the Spirit in the Office

One of the things I am really learning is that being in the offices is still part of the mission, but is still very diffrent. If we are not to careful the offices can just be an offices even though we are doing things for the church. Later in the week you will see a blog post appear about an experince I had this week.

Thinking about this I really have been studying how can we feel and recognize the spirit. For me this is something that is really hard, and I have heard many things that have helped me and I can and probably will write many more blog posts about recognizing the spirit, because it is not only one of the most important things we need to do but something that I am really studying.

For now I want to just write about feeling the spirit in the office or how you can feel the spirit througout the day. I know they are your usualy sunday school answers but they are basics and are very imporant that is the importance of prayer, and scripture study. I can testify now that these basics help us feel the spirit during the day even when we are not in the church. First and foremost as you will read in another blog post about my experince of personal scripture study in the near future. Since I have been here the past three weeks I will be honest we have not had our studies everyday and I can tell you there is a huge diffrence. The other is just simply always having a prayer in our hearts.

For now I want to talk about some changes we have made here in the office that have made us really feel the spirit and change how we have worked this past week. When I first got here we would come in and just start working and that was it, we also had tongs of problems with coordination because we have to share a car and with all 6 of us having to do very difffrent things, on time and in diffrent places it made it really hard. This also made tentions rise and at times we would have a spirit of contention.

How did we fix it. Well president Smith suggested we start everyday with a meeting where we verify the plans, and plan for the next day. This is going to help either way, but he then said we need to start it with a devotional and a hymn. This is something that is only 10 or 15 minutes at the most but not only are we working more effciently, but I can say I am not just working in an office but the office of a mission.

Other things that has been intresting ways to feel the spirit is through focusing on christ attributes. Especially at times when we are driving and people cut us off, or we get a call from a angry land lord.  Things are very diffrent when you have to start the conversation off with Elder Holt speaking from the Montevideo Oeste Mission. How can I help you?  Focusing on those attributes have really helped especially focusing on the attribute with patience. We get a variety of calls, and we receive a lot of them, but becuase there is a focus on helping the person and being a representive Christ there is a huge diffrence in this offices than any other offices I have worked on and that diffrence is the spirit.

Hope you all have a good week. On a side note I am to a point some of these things are easier to just write in spanish or think in spanish it is funny to think I never thought I would have this probably where I had such a struggle with the languag