100% Responsibility, Sept 10, 2018

Family and Friends! 
This was a great week. We went to Bandon for exchanges with the sisters. We started off our day running at the beach. You know you're in an incredibly beautiful place when there are photographers up early and everywhere on the beach. It was absolutely stunning, didn't feel real that we were actually running there. 

We went and did some service where we pre packed frozen meals. Then they fed us lunch after. It was really fun to get to sit and talk with people from all walks of life. The sisters are doing a great job helping build friendships in the community.

We went and got ice cream and did some studies. I loved being with Sister Sheer I really loved her input and we were able to open up and talk alot about family history and our ancestors. That night I got special treatment as the sisters tucked me in and Sister Sheer played a song on the uckelie that she doesn't know how to play. 😂

Wednesday we had a lesson with Fina! She is going to school and has been super stressed with her studies and trying to pass a test she has failed by 4 pts. We were able to help her see that if she put God first He would help everything to work out. I guess missionaries had taught her son in the past but it had been a while since she had seen them. She read the restoration pamphlet and loved it. I'm excited to teach her more!

We found out that the Coos Bay sisters area will be taken over by the Elders. 
I will be staying here on the coast in paradise for at least the next 6 weeks with Sister Davis. And Bandon Sisters will be in a trio. I'm excited for the changes, alot of new missionaries I don't know are coming to our zone so new friends!!! And I will also have Sister Bodtcher and Sister Mousser (2 of my old companions) in the zone. I'm super excited!

This last week I remembered that when I was in grants pass a member from what I thought North bend/Coos bay bought me dinner at panda express. I searched it up and found out that it was Sister Peck in my ward! I found her on Sunday and asked if she remembered. She broke down in tears and I gave her a giant hug and thanked her for watching out for me all this time. It was such a special moment. 

This week I have been enjoying listening to the Saints book in the morning while I get ready. If you haven't checked it out yet I would invite you to do so. I have learned so much and the stories in there really explain how everything happened to help the Book of Mormon come forth and the preparation Joseph Smith was given to be able to do this work. Amazing!

I've also been studying a talk called "Be 100 Percent Responsible" BY LYNN G. ROBBINS. He begins by sharing how there are 3 main pairs of principals that are incomplete without the other. And how Satan tries to separate the two. It's one of his ways of keeping the Children of receiving light. They are...

1. Agency and Responsibility 
2. Mercy and Justice
3. Faith and Works

He gives an Anti-responsibility list. Or how I look at it the Natural man list. Some of the few things on this list are; blaming others, rationalizing or justifying, making excuses, minimizing sin, covering up, finding falt and getting angry etc. 

When we do these things we justify ourselves out of the repentance process and are ultimately turning ourselves over to the natural man inside of us. I know for me I would rather feel embarrassed, shame, stress, and maybe a bit of anxiety for a small moment and use the gift God has given us the atonement to repent instead of turning myself over to the anti responsibility list. 

"A determined man will find a way, the other finds an excuse." 
"Any excuse for non performance only weekends the character."

I will be 100% responsible in accepting myself as the person in control of my own life. And when I make mistakes I will account for them and turn to my Savior for help once more. 

He talks about how forgiveness of sins is not ours to do. It is the Lord's through the person's sincere repentance. But for each of us it is required to forgive all men of falling into the natural man impulses. We are punished by our sins not for them. Christ did that part. By not forgiving we are denying God's mercy and healing for ourselves. 

So how do we put off the natural man?
Mosiah 3:19 
"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."

Through developing Christlike attributes! I invite each of you to pick a Christlike attribute you would like to have a study about it and work on it each day this week. Let me know how it goes! I love you all so much! 
Love 
Sister Leavitt

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