A matter of A Few Degrees

Why hello there dearest family of mine! How in the world are you all doing this fine loverly day? It has been yet again another wondrous week here in Tijuana. We had the celebration of the independence of Mexico on Sunday night. It is pretty fun what they do, it is called “el grito” which is translate to “the yell”. So they all just get together and have a littler ceremony deal and yell. Seeing as they do it in the middle of the night we were not able to attend, but the whole epicenter of the thing was like 5 minutes walking from our house and you could hear it all and see a few fireworks and stuff. That was sure fun. So happy independence Mexico!

So this week has been great. We got a new companion, Elder Chappel. He will be taking the spot of Elder Bryce as the secretary of President. I am training Elder Guzman to be the financial secretary. So I will be heading out of here in 2 weeks. I am excited to go out and be able to work 100% out in the field again. It is gonna be a blast! We are doing well here in the ward still. We are struggling a little bit in finding new investigators, but God is blessing us with miracles so that the work can progress here.

In the ward there is a hermana that has been a member all of her life who split up with her husband a few years ago, she has been trying to get a divorce for many years so that she can be married to her new husband. After lots of prayer, fasting, and a lot of hard work she got her divorce a couple of weeks ago, but there was still a problem. Without going into the whole story, the way has been placed that they will now be able to be married this next week and her new husband that has been going to church for over a year will finally be able to be baptized! Isn’t it incredible to see how God works to help each of his children reach their goals?

This week we have been working a lot with less active members. We are starting to see a lot of progress in them. I have realized that all though everyone says that for some reason or another they can’t come back, all can come back to God. There is nothing that cannot be healed by the power and Atonement of Jesus Christ. I found an incredible talk this week that talks of this very subject. In April 2008, right after President Uchtdorf was sustained into the First Presidency of the Church, he gave a talk entitles A Matter of a Few Degrees.

In the talk, President Uchtdorf talks about how small deviations from the path can have large outcomes. In our life it is the same, God has given us the path and has told us to follow it. Most of the people that I talk to that don’t want to come back to the Church have had some past sin or something that has deviated their path. The majority of them even do not recognize that they have left the path or that their deviation will not make much difference.  President Uchtdorf used this example to show how a matter of a few degrees really can make a difference;

“Suppose you were to take off from an airport at the equator, intending to circumnavigate the globe, but your course was off by just one degree. By the time you returned to the same longitude, how far off course would you be? A few miles? A hundred miles? The answer might surprise you. An error of only one degree would put you almost 500 miles (800 km) off course, or one hour of flight for a jet.”

In this life we will make mistakes and we will deviate from the path, but what is important is to recognize our mistakes and put ourselves back onto the path as soon as possible so that we may reach the final destination that we want. All of this is only possible through Jesus Christ and the power of the Atonement. He is our compass; if we follow him we will stay on path and if we leave the path, He will teach and show us exactly how to get back. So as always, I leave you with an invitation; find that compass and look at where you are at. Make sure you are on the right path.

I wish you all an incredible week! Remember who you are and act accordingly, and I will talk to you next week.

Love ya,

Elder Anderson