Dear Sisters and Elders,
We are looking forward to gathering together as an entire mission this Saturday to be taught by Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve. I have already sent you the spiritual and physical preparation items for this meeting. We are so very blessed to have the opportunity to meet with Elder Bednar and Sister Ostler and I look forward to seeing all of our beloved missionaries together--the only time we will have this opportunity.
I want to share with you a few quotes for you to ponder this week as you think about your commitment to the Lord.
"If you have not chosen the kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead." (William Law)
"The Kingdom of God or nothing!" (John Taylor)
"When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives." (Ezra Taft Benson)
"As I study ancient scripture I am more and more convinced of the significance in the fact that the commandment "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" is the first of the Ten Commandments...Few men have ever knowingly and deliberately chosen to reject God and his blessings. Rather, we learn from the scriptures that because the exercise of faith has always appeared to be more difficult than relying on things more immediately at hand, carnal man has tended to transfer his trust in God to material things...Whatever thing a man sets his heart and his trust in most is his god; and if his god doesn't also happen to be the true and living God of Israel, that man is laboring in idolatry." (Spencer W. Kimball)
I invite all of us to put God first in our lives. "But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." (1 Corinthians 2:9)
"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ, and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God." (Moroni 10:32)
Mahal ko po kayo,
President Creg Ostler