Week 26- Pride and Ego (I forgot to press send)

Aloha 皆さん、

Today I want to talk about Pride, Ego and Humility. In Utah this was always a common topic for me to have in my emails because I think it's naturally the hardest for me but not for why you might think. Anyways during our last district council meeting our AP was talking about Humility and asked me what I thought it was. I answered back that it was not having pride or an ego. Because when we are prideful or have a huge ego that's when we start to compare ourselves to others and think of ourselves as better. We develop thoughts that only dig a deeper hole. And when we compare ourselves we can never be satisfied because we are looking externally for something we lack internally. Seeking external validation for internal insecurities. So when we are able to cast out that pride or ego then we can be humble and seek improvement and accept criticism. The AP agreed but also added that being humble is also being able to follow God's will. Which reminded me of what my ZL told me during exchanges in Utah. In a spiritual sense being humble is being able to submit yourself to God's will. Setting aside your pride and ego and literally conforming to what God wants us to do. Now when I first heard that explanation from my ZL I shared with him how that seems impossible, I can't even listen to my own parents (LOL) and he agreed, it is unnatural for humans to submit to somebody else's will. We all want to do what we want and it's in our nature. But that's what makes it so special. Can we set aside our own natural pride and ego and come to God humbly? Or will our Pride Get in the way? Will we question Why? It seems so easy and yet from experience my parents will tell you just how hard that is for me. My parents want me to go right and because of that I want to go left. But I'm sure that the same frustration my parents have at me when I fail to heed to their advice is what Heavenly Father must feel for all of us, but I guess it would be less frustration and more sadness. I want to become more humble in the fact that I can listen to God's will. Anyways, I thought I'd share all that. Highlights: -Transfers -Tons of teaching -BENCH Transfers: So Transfers Happened. Nothing changed for me and Elder Matsuo, we are still chilling in Fukuoka. But now we have a grand total of 13 missionaries in the Fukuoka ward including the 3 office elders and 2 APs. It's kinda crazy. I've never seen anything like it before. Everyone that's in the district seems nice and I hope I stay in Fukuoka for a little while because I'm loving the area. There are a couple things I wish I could change but we will get there. Tons of Teaching:

This past week was crazy with teaching, we had multiple days where we had tons of lessons back to back. It was great. We also found two new people within the span of like an hour which was super cool but yeah the work has been great so far we just need to get more people to come to church! Which is a little harder but we push forward BENCH: So I got my hands on a bench this transfer due to some people leaving. And I'm so grateful for the bench I'm not even joking. Our apartment also comes with those adjustable dumbbells and you can do so much with dumbbells and a bench. I can finally do incline bench again LOL. But the bad thing about the bench is now the APs really want it. I swear on like the second day the APs came to our apartment at like 7:15 and I walked out of our rook to find them tryna haul it off😒But hopefully I stay in fukuoka for a while because now I have a great area and a BENCH.

But we also had a misinput with cutting my hair so I do now have probably the most jacked up haircut ever (ノ-_-)ノ~┻━┻ ITS FINE I GUESS, at this point I should just buzz it but I'll just live with a bad haircut for a couple weeks (hopefully). Okay that's all Shoots! 愛してます TheRisingSon