COVENANTS

My new companion is Elder Painter from Texas. He has about a year, and he speaks the language VERY WELL. It's been really nice and I have to be careful not to rely on him too much when we teach. However, I have been improving a lot on understanding, which was a challenge for me at first. Now comes the next step. I can teach basic things, I just need to work harder on grammar so I can convey my feelings a little more clearly. Elder Painter is very knowledgeable in the scriptures, and though at first it was a little intimidating, we have had some really interesting discussions.

I gave my first talk in Sacrament meeting about baptismal covenants. I talked about what a covenant was and cited scriptures in Doctrine and Covenants. It talks about how blessed are those who keep the covenants they have made with the Lord. As I have been out here, I have come to realize little by little the importance of these covenants. They literally bind us to our Heavenly Father in the sense that we receive blessings in this life and have the opportunity to live with Him in the eternities. Elder Bowen in the last conference told us to ask those we talk to the "disturbing question" or "questions of the soul." Disturbing in the sense that they lead us to have a thirst to satisfy and answer the question that is burning within our soul. Who am I? What is my purpose here? Those are just some of the cliche examples, but really I think we take for granted sometimes how much comfort we have in knowing the answers to these questions. No matter what happens, we ALWAYS have a loving Father in Heaven, bound to us by our covenants and promises we have made with Him. I love that talk that Elder Christofferson gave last general conference about the comfort that our covenants give us. They are truly more powerful than we can imagine, made by the same power that created worlds without number.