due to the lack of noise pollution laws and copyright laws here, they have an interesting way of campaigning for office. what they do is the different parties hire artists (singers and bands) to do remakes of some of the most popular songs on the radio. in these remakes they change the words into their campaign songs ha. then they hire people with trucks that have huge speakers and sounds systems piled in the back to drive around all day playing these songs over and over and over again. (remember theres multiple people runing for office so that means multiple people have hired multiple people to play multiple songs as lound as they can all day every day. i think it will end up that the person that made the best election song will be the one to win ha ha. next for the higher political offices such as president or vice or senators things like that, people are so corrupt they just send people out with a whole bunch of envelopes and pay you to vote for them. straite to the point ha, thats part of the reason the philippines is struggling with so much poverty for so long they have had a corrupt government.
general conference was great of course! its always amazing how clearly and directly the brethren teach. its so clear you cant really mis understand them. im feeling very blessed that we have prophets and apostles to keep us on the right track. and if you want to feel blessed too come here and see how confused people are as to how to worship god theres sooooooooooooooooooooooo many different churches all over the place its like joseph smiths era to the max.
so i keep hearing americas going to war with north korea. that stinks. i figured you wouldnt add anything in your letters about that but just so you know everybody is talking about it here.
anyways i was really (as always) impressed with elder bednars talk about the law of chastity. not so much for the part about chastity but about the natural man. after reading and listening t many talks of elder bednar ive noticed that he almost always makes a reference to wither mosiah chapter 3 or 2 nephi chapter 2. the natural man, and overcoming the natural man is the great battle of life. i remember one of my favorite talks from him that talks about the character of Christ and he shares some examples of people who were placed in various heart breaking circumstances such as the tragic death of a daughter in a car accident but in the midst of these trials the good in then had triumphed and they instead of giving into the natural man inside of them they decided to turn outward and give head to the promptings of the holy spirit and at a point in their life where they had every right to think of themselves and sink into despair, they didnt because their character had been changed through the atonement of Jesus Christ. if i remember correctly the mother of one of the 3 girls in the accident immediately after she found out that it was actually her daughter involved and killed in the accident (she had not previously known this) without hesitation she immediately began working on how they can inform the other mothers about the situation of their daughters and how what they can do for them, and then at a later time while she was on the way to the funeral of her own daughter she recieved a phone call from an irritated sister in the ward that she had not been taken breakfast that morning as she was told would happen, and so on the way to the funeral of her daughter unstead of doing what any normal person would do, ( loose their mind at the thoughtlessness of this sister and say im on the way to the funeral of my daughter you have a lot of nerve!!!! ) she didnt, she stopped at kentucky fried chicken and went to this sisters house before the funeral to bring her food.
i find myself thinking about that often. how have i changed lately? who do i find myself thinking about the most, myself? or others? when im sick or have problems do i find myself needing or even worse expecting attention of help from others or can i press forward serving others and forgetting about myself. (as the savior has asked us to do, and most importantly as he did) ednar so skillfully portrays the "natural man" in us and then presents how no matter what our circumstances are we can choose to "act and not be acted upon" through the atonement of christ and the promptings of the spirit we can be changed. our very nature can be changed. our selfishness and inward intentions can and need to be changed. its hard isnt it? to get over ourselves.. to learn that lesson that yes we are important but not more important that anybody else.. i hope that i can somehow someday gain that christlike attribute of ALWAYS turning outward and not making excuses of why at this time and in this situation its okay for me to pitty myself or on this day i need this for myself. imagine the world if people spent more thime thinking about other people than their selves, , isnt that a great thought? imagine what could be accomplished. its a long shot ha, but it can start right here with me.
i love you all theres my weekly sermon, just coppied from the thoughts of others ha ha anyways but thats okay. anyways take care all of you until next week... elder landeen
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