April 25, 2016 - The One Where we Die!

Holy cow this week has been so crazy! I'm dead. Very much dead. The
lack of another Elder has made it so we have to work double time. We
have had 6-8 set appointments every day. We taught a whopping 38 total
lessons and 13 member presents. We were so tired by the end of the
week we are happy to be able to take today to recuperate. I basically
told President in my email that we are not going to ask him to close a
proselyting area in order for us to get a forth missionary; however,
if for any reason there is an Elder who has to be sent home, and he is
left with a stray Elder floating around, please send him to us. Cause
we be tired!

Because of all the insanity there has been little time for anything to
crazy to happen. There was one really random moment this week though.
While we were sitting in a lesson with a guy, some random dude walked
into his house and tried to give us a dollar. We were trying to
explain that we don't accept money for this and he kept on trying to
tell us it wasn't for us but for God. Eventually we got him to leave
without us taking the money.

This week we spent our morning doing service for a member.  We only got
one wall of baseboard done in the two hours we were over there. I'm
pretty sure I got a little high off the paint remover in the process ;)

We went to one of our investigators houses on her birthday to drop off
a cake we made. We sang her happy birthday, it was fun!

I also went on exchange this week with one of the new Elders in our
district. He came to Danville with myself and Elder Stephens. His name
is Elder Sherman and he actually came out with Elder Dortch and was
companions with him just before he got here. We got to talk about him
which was really nice. I haven't seen him in such a long time and
probably won't before he goes home in a few months.

We also had quite the run round at the hospital this week. We were
asked to visit a youth in our ward who had an appendectomy the night
before and after a twenty minute ordeal trying to find the right room
we were told that he just left. So we visited him with his dad after
teams that night at his house. He seemed pretty grateful.

Overall a busy busy week.

Send me pictures, read your scriptures,
Love you!
Elder Galvin

P. S. Due to popular demand I included another set of study notes,
this time on humility. It's incomplete, nevertheless, Enjoy!

To be humble is to recognize gratefully your dependence on the
Lord--to understand that you have constant need for His support.
Humility is an acknowledgment that your talents and abilities are
gifts from God. It is not a sign of weakness, timidity, or fear; it is
an indication that you know where your true strength lies. You can be
both humble and fearless. You can be both humble and courageous. -
True to the Faith

Heavenly Father wants a humble people, and there are only two ways to
be humbled, we can either be humbled by our own choice or we can be
compelled to be humble. Alma said "blessed are they who humble
themselves without being compelled to be humbled" (Alma 32:16) Those
who are compelled to be humble and those who choose humility will both
end up in the same place; however, those who choose humility will
receive blessings because of it. And usually those who are compelled
to be humble do so as a result of chastisement from Heavenly Father.

In order to understand how we can choose to be humble we must first
understand how people throughout scriptural history have been
compelled to be humble, and then to avoid those things. Most commonly
throughout the scriptures, people are compelled to be humble because
they are prideful. Pride is the opposite of humility and and takes
various forms. How many times do we hear of the Pride Cycle in the
book of Mormon. Nephi says "they are corrupted because of
pride...because of their pride they are puffed up"(See 2 Ne. 9:42.).
Now most often we hear in the scriptures that people are made prideful
because of their exceeding riches and the wearing of costly apparel,
and that the rich neglected and cast aside the poor and the needy.
President Ezra Taft Benson said "Most of us consider pride to be a sin
of those on the top, such as the rich and the learned, looking down at
the rest of us.  There is, however, a far more common ailment among
us--and that is pride from the bottom looking up. It is manifest in so
many ways, such as faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, murmuring,
living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and
praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous." I
would argue, like President Benson, that not only were the rich people
in those times of the Book of Mormon prideful, but also the poor. They
probably resented the wealthy for their riches. They probably were
jealous and envious of what others had, rather than looking for they
good in the things that they owned, however little that may have been.
They may have even cursed God for their misfortunes and wallowed in
misery loathing both themselves and others, blaming God for their
trials. What a horrible way to live your life. In some vain attempt at
gratification they try to pull people down to their level so they
don't feel so low. However, they will eventually fail, and that will
cause them only to sink lower in their sadness and increase their
pride. Pride is simply not an option if we want to be happy. We need
to avoid the tendency to compare, complain, and criticize.

"Before Honour comes Humility" - Proverbs 15:33
There are many people who seek for acknowledgment and recognition for
the things they have done. This is a very prideful thing to do. We
learn from this scripture that the humble will receive honor. And in
this case I don't think it refers to a temporal honor, but a spiritual
honor. The first thing the Savior taught during the Sermon on the
Mount was "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven" (Matt. 5:3). We know that being "poor in spirit" does not
mean that they are depressed or sad but that they are humble in
spirit. Putting all this together would lead us to the conclusion that
humility allow us the honor of having the kingdom of heaven.

"God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble
yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he will exalt
you in due time" - 1 Peter 5:5-6
God's Grace is a gift that essentially is the enabling power of the
atonement, because the atonement is so central to our exaltation it
would make sense that Grace is required. Now the linking point between
exaltation and grace is humility. We need to humble ourselves before
God and repent of our sins in order for the Atonement's saving power
to become effective. A proud person usually will not even recognize
they are sinning and therefore will not even begin their repentance
process. However a humble person recognizes their own weaknesses and
acknowledges the Savior as the only person who can help them overcome
them. This allows the gift of grace to take effect and the Atonement
to cleanse of sin. As a humble person continues to repeat this cycle
of repentance they will eventually become exalted, fulfilling Peter's
promise.

"They did humble themselves to the depths of Humility"
This is a phrase repeated many times throughout the Book of Mormon.
The cause of the people having to humble themselves varies but the
outcome is usually the same. Multiple times after being humble to the
depths of humility people usually end up crying unto the Lord. If
refer back to the description of Humility in True to the Faith it
talks about recognizing dependance on the Lord and a constant need for
His support. What better way to gain support from heavenly Father than
humbling yourself and beginning to pray.
If we were to quantify humility it would probably be on a vertical
scale, and because humility isn't about lifting yourself up to be in
the view of others I would say that the highest humility level would
be at the bottom of this Humility scale and the least humble would be
at the top of this scale. So when the scriptures talk about people
being humbled to the depths of humility I think about people being
brought down this scale until they reach the highest level of humility
which would be the depths of humility.

Now there is an interesting case study of Humility found in D&C 104
but I'm going to focus of the principle in verse 79. "And it is my
will that you shall humble yourselves before me, and obtain this
blessing by your diligence and humility and the prayer of faith. And
inasmuch as you are diligent and humble, and exercise the prayer of
faith, behold, I will soften the hearts of those to whom you are in
debt, until I shall send means unto you for your deliverance."
We see this cycle of Humility and Prayer again here but there is a new
element thrown into the mix, Diligence. Now in this scripture it says
that we need to diligent and humble, and I would add diligently humble
because it does us no good to only be humble some of the times or to
be humble when we need it. To me that would be hypocritical and wrong
and almost like taking advantage of Heavenly Father. Heavenly Father
promises later on in that section "And inasmuch as ye are humble and
faithful and call upon my name, behold, I will give you the victory."