Past the MTC half-way mark!

Dearest family and friends,

I cannot believe that I have been here for over half of my stay! To put things in perspective, all of the Spanish speaking missionaries that came in with me have their travel itineraries and will be going through in-field-orientation tomorrow! Wow! I can't believe it! They just come and they go! It's kind of a reality check for me. I am over halfway done and I am not even close to where I want to be spiritually or with regards to the language. I have to say that I am looking forward to the plane ride. It will be 12ish hours of stress free scripture and language study and sleep! It will be amazing. I don't know if I should feel guilty for that or not........ 

This past week I have learned a lot about charity. I was reading in Moroni 10 and in verse 20 it says something about faith and hope leading to charity, and I was kind of confused about that progression. I was thinking about the faith to knowledge progression. So I was thinking a lot about that I decided to read in Moroni 7 which talks a lot about charity. Verse 41 says: 

And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.

That verse just hit me! It was the perfect explanation. If we have faith in Jesus Christ and hope that we will be raised to eternal life through the power of his atonement and resurrection, If we believe all those things enough to act on them (faith) then we will want to be like him. We will want to emulate him as closely as we can. Christ's charity (and consequently all of the other Christ-like attributes) is his defining attribute. His infinite capacity to love is what enabled him to be long suffering, meek, humble.... So how does this apply to us? If we say that we have faith in Jesus Christ and in his atonement and resurrection then we should be doing our best to be like he is. We should be turning out like he did. We should be trying to love everyone as he did. This is where the "faith, if it hath not works, is dead"(James 2: 17) comes in. Because if we aren't trying to be as much like him as we can, then we don't really have faith. 

I know I am kind of preaching to the choir and everything but that scripture hit me in a way that it never has before. Maybe it is something I really needed or that I needed to teach someone about (almost definitely both), but I know that this is important. I am so grateful to have been sent on a mission and I am so grateful for what the Lord has done for me. Christ is my hero and I want to be as much like him as I can. 

I love you guys! I hope you are doing well! Please give my love to Clarissa and Sarah! I am praying for you!

Love,
Siebach Choro