Draft--Talk on Being a Light for Christ in our day-to-day lives

The thing I most regret on my mission was not getting out of my appartment enough. I know, I have no excuse, and it's embarising. I didn't even have much to do at all. I had no smart phone, no computer. The most technology I had was probably my camera. What did I do you ask? Mostly write in my notebook, or write letters to my family and friends, eat food, etc... I know what a downer. The dumb thing is that I was great at teaching lessons. I loved the gospel! I loved to see the fire in investigators eyes and to help them. If I had leads of people that were progressing, I was great. It's the finding part that to this day I feel I've never been any good at.

There was a saying on my mission called, "OYM" which stands for "Open Your Mouth". Basically the idea that you need to constantly just be talking to peopl, don't let them pass you on the street without trying to have a conversation with them was the name of the game, and boy was I bad at that game. There was some days I did awesome. I would get into it and it would start to feel normal, maybe even be a bit fun, but all it took was a few people passing and for me to say, "no, they're too busy" or see a person with headphones on and say, "they obviously don't want to be disturbed, I won't bother them". At this point my confidence would wane and my stress would mount and my mouth would shut, and it was very hard to open it agian.

I really can't stop thinking about that guy with the headphones on. He seems to be such a strong indication of what our world has turned into. We're all in our little cacoons of comfort. I'm one of the last almost-dinosours that remembers what it was like before, and as, technology had taken over our lives, at least to the extent that it has now.

My parents, despite being technology forward, didn't pay for me to have texting on my phone, and only have a limited set of minutes. My only phone calls were short less than one minute calls to ask my parrents to come pick me up from high school. What was interesing was to watch my classmates that wouldn't go seconds between checking their phones in the middle of a teacher's sentence. This was just texting. This was like friends say, "what's up" to eachother, this was before we had organizations that had super computers calculating your exact reaction to how long you pause to look at a photo and tracking your every movement to know just the right time to pull you back into their app so they can sell your attention to the highest bidder.

It's important to realize that this is the case because you'll realize that the reality of everyone being sucked into technology is not by accident, or normal in any way, but manufactered by people who want to make money. Those even, that make the most money in the world. The world's never been this way before.

While it's brought us good, it's not without a terrible price, that of eachother. I used to ride the bus, what did people used to do when they were waiting for the bus? They used to talk to eachother. Want to know how not-normal that is now? Very. But it shouldn't be. We should talk to others around us. We should reach out to people.

We all live in our safe little cacoons of safety.

"Feed my Sheep"

One of my favorite talks of all time is by Jeffery R. Holland where he talks about the saviors simple statement to, "Feed my Sheep". He really expanded upon it talking about how exasperated the savior must have been about the fact that his desiples just went back to their every day lives and stopped being deciples.

ref: https://laytreasuresinheaven.com/feed-my-sheep-elder-holland/

And to that, the Savior of the world said, “Then feed my sheep! I have asked you before to leave your nets. And I’m asking you again, and I don’t want to ask you a third time. When I said, ‘Leave your nets,’ it was forever. When I asked you to follow me, it was forever. When I asked you to be an apostle, it was forever. When I asked you to be a Missionary, it was forever. When I asked you to see this through to the end, it was because it’s not over ’til it’s over. Now forget your nets, and forget the fish, and jettison your boat, and throw those oars away for the second time, and feed my sheep. We’re in this ’til the end.”

And that’s the day Peter strode into eternity, and became the man within hours, within days at the very least. When people plead that they could be taken into the street and left on their cot in hopes the shadow of Peter would pass over them. That’s the Peter that he became with that little confrontation on the shore. And the issue is for all time and eternity, “Do. You. Love. Me? Do you love me?”

Sure they didn't take up achohol and throw it all away, I'm sure they still lived all the 10 commandments and were good upstanding people. But that's not what the Savior was asking. He was asking for them to BE CHANGED and to act different because of it. The ultimate transformation of a person who's been converted is to love your neighbor as yourself. That's the #1 commandment.

[[Matthew Chapter 22#^39e5ed]]: 36. Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38. This is the first and great commandment. 39. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.