Agency & Action (5/10)

Happy (belated) Mother's Day to all you moms.... It was so great to be able to talk to my family on Sunday. It's kind of surreal that they're actually still living "normal life" and that things are happening at home without me, but I really enjoyed hearing everything that's going on.

I try not to sound too frustrated when I write these blogs, but there really are just as many negative experiences as there are positives every week. It's hard watching people trying to take the easy way out by not making or keeping commitments. They think that it's hard to have to comply with God's laws FOREVER. I understand that "forever" is kind of a big idea... eternity is a long time, but the fact is that we're all going to be around for a really long time, and it's much easier when we have the gospel. We have been given the wonderful gift of agency - and we have the opportunity to choose whether we want to spend that forever in misery or joy (See 2 Nephi 2:27).

I read a scripture this morning in Helaman 11, that talks about the Nephites bringing on their own destruction (one of hundreds of expamples of this idea in the scriptures). With this gift of agency we've been given, we can choose our actions, but we usually can not choose the consequences. This week, for example, we started our car to head from one neighborhood to the next, and the car ran for a few seconds, and then quickly puttered out. It didn't take us long to figure out that we were out of gas - a consequence of our own action (or lack of action, you could say). We considered putting water in the tank and praying REALLY hard that it would turn into gas, but we didn't have any water either :) Anyway, everything worked out, but it made for a kind of *miserable few minutes while we figured out how we were going to solve the problem.

Imagine the consequences of a greater action - denying the gospel of Jesus Christ... now we're not talking about a brief period of misery, but an eternity... that same FOREVER that seems kind of intimidating when you know all the things you should be doing.

I should mention that the reason we ran out of gas was because our fuel meter actually isn't working - this system fail is what caused the halt in our day. Fortunately we have guides for life that are not going to fail - the scriptures, a prophet, the Holy Ghost - each of these tools that help us recognize when our fuel tanks are low and when we need to refuel. Each tool/gift that we have been given makes "forever" seem easier, and brings us joy instead of misery.

I promise that the blessings of living the standards of the gospel are FAR greater than what sometimes seems like the easier option. It is only when we are doing what's right that we receive the fulness of the blessings that Heavenly Father has for us, the greatest of which is ETERNAL joy... something that we can not even fully comprehend right now, but is an incredible blessing, and is infinitely better than the alternative of eternal misery. We have been given the choice, and the options are clear. You choose.

Much love,

Hermana Richelle Ouellette

*Ok, it wasn't really that miserable... we tend to have a good time no matter what happens! (See photo of us thinking about what how we are going to get out of this sticky situation)

Other picture... someone told us putting egg yolks on your face is good for your skin.... so we did it. Action = egg yolks on face; Consequence = perfect skin, eternal joy.