Week 24, Jan 19 - Pondering the Old Testament

Well the news is in - I´m staying the entire winter in a place that doesn´t know winter. The Lord really does bless His missionaries. In fact, my whole district stayed. I don´t have a whole lot of time to write this week, because we´re working on the piso - we´ve got some IKEA furniture to build. The other stuff broke because missionaries are not nice to appartments - it´s a miracle that any landlord ever joined the church. I want everybody to know that I am healthy and happy here in Telde - and that life as a missionary is awesome.

I decided to start the Old Testament. I just finished Deuteronomy. And I´m really glad you taught Gospel Doctrine and that we talked about it sometimes because I see SO many cool things in that very confusing Mosaic law.  I highlighted every time it said, "A male without blemish" for obvious reasons. And then you find verses like Joshua 7:10 that you can tell your companion to look up when he´s napping instead of doing something productive. And, I found this little nugget this morning. Read what Moses says to give courage to Joshua. (Last couple chapters of Deuterononmy). And then you read what Jehovah says to give courage to Joshua. (Joshua ch. 1) And then (this is where I applied it) realize that Jehovah´s words aren´t really His - they´re Moses´. (of course, they could be His that He gave to Moses, but that´s another thing.) 

I see it as Jehovah quoting Moses. And He´s speaking peace to Joshua´s soul in a way that made for some cool verses. But even more than that - He´s speaking peace to Joshua´s soul in a way that, to Joshua, means A LOT. He´s speaking peace to Joshua in a way that only Joshua would recognize as significant. And really, that´s what He does for all of us. He talks to all of us in ways that other people might perceive as, "Oh, that´s pretty cool." But for us, it means the world. 

Love,

Elder Stew