Hastening the Work is THE BEST! :)

Greetings, loved ones! This past week was awesome! We had a BAPTISM! Sister Jess is so great, and the baptism all went well. A couple of days before the baptism we test-filled the font, and turns out that the patches over the paint ripped. There are stairs to our font, and they got filled up with water. So there's currently water inside, and there's been this imminent threat of having the whole thing bust open, but thankfully the Lord didn't let that happen.

We had three baptisms in our branch; it was quite a turn-out from the branch, too. Go team! :)

Anywho, when I got changed into the white clothes for the baptism I realized a couple of things: 1) I haven't worn those white pants since before the MTC; B) I haven't worn that shirt since Singapore, over a year ago; and III) I've gained weight on my mission. When I left the MTC I was roughly 125 to 130 lbs...I'm currently 148. You could call me a roly-poly, you could call me a chub, you could call me whatever, and it would probably be accurate. Trying to get into the baptismal clothes was a little bit of a tight squeeze. 

Anywho, the baptism all went really well. Sister Jess was confirmed yesterday at the beginning of church, and she's now beginning the greatest journey of her life :) This Gospel really is meant to refine and change us and help us to become MORE. Specifically, MORE like our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Lately I've been studying charity; I was reading through a book that Dad had sent with me that is written by James E. Talmage. During one part of the book, he essentially says that the two great commandments--"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind" and "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"--are saying the same thing: "Thou shalt LOVE." When we do so, we'll be fulfilling any and every requirement and commandment, because we would never want to harm another person or lose the trust of our Lord. I'm still trying to work on charity, and it's an uphill climb, but it's so worth it :)

I love you all, and hope that you have a wonderful week! 

Keep on keeping on! :)

Sincerely,

Mai Zhanglao