Baptism

So Cheeto was baptized on Saturday.  He was so excited!  I'll have to send some pictures.  I confirmed him on Sunday, and that was pretty intense because there were a bunch of people there who needed translation for the meeting, so I did that too.  It was all a little nerve-racking, but turned out well.

 

I also saw a kinda funny bumber sticker yesterday... It said, "God's original plan was to hang out in a garden with some naked vegetarians."  First, it made me laugh, but then it made me reflect on the purpose of life, and the plan that God has for us.  It seems to me that the world's declining morals are due mainly to a deficiency in understanding of the purpose of life.  If I thought we were here with all these challenges just because my great great great great great great great great great great great great grandpearents ate some magic fruit, and now we just had to kinda be good and learn about/accept Jesus so we could go back to some garden or heaven or whatever and hang out forever with some naked winged children in the clouds, I'd probably do bad stuff too.  I love God with all my heart, but if the purpose was for us all to leave him so only the good ones would come back, and then just sit there and sing about him for the rest of unending eternity, I probably wouldn't care a whole lot...  What would compell us to be good besides the fear of punishment?  It makes a lot more sense to me for the fall to have been part of the plan, because what do we do all of our life? We learn.  We constantly, involuntarily, take in, analyze, and store information, then base our actions off of that information.  progression and growth cannot happen until there is some sort of damage or retrogression first.  The way that every living thing in nature works, is that it does not become any stronger or better until it faces opposition.  Your skin doesn't get thicker until it's torn.  Your muscles don't get bigger until you tear them with work. Etc.  There was none of that in the garden.  That would've been a boring plan.  We would've stayed the same forever.  Life is only fun when you are accomplishing things...  And our capacity to learn and grow makes it obvious that God want's us to be more than we are now. What more would we be if we did less?  We have our families to help us learn about our relationship with him and his with us.  We don't raise children just so they can come back to our home and tell us how great we are so we'll take care of them for the rest of their lives.  We raise them to be self sufficient.  To be able to go out on their own and accomplish things.  God is the same.  He will always be or father, we will always be under his rule, but he wants us to grow up and become more. 

 

Elder Katzakain