Elder Rice Mail for August 12, 2012

In the package sorry i dont wanna sound like beggy but can you add zero bars, tide to go, kimchi stains have destroyed some shirts so I really need tide to go. Ya thats it. I love you oh and i accidentally spilled my bottle of iodine on the floor. so im out sorry.  no mess though korean floors are like a rolled matt that cant stain.

Family,
Another week has blazed by. We do service at this place and we feed older people food and once a month we go to a "retirement" home   and we give them some food. Like last week was 팟빙수 pot bing soo its ice and has red beanns and fruit and stuff on it. (from Mom: official definition - Patbingsu or patbingsoo (팥빙수) is a popular shaved ice  dessert in South Korea, especially during the hot and humid summer season. This snack originally began as ice shavings and sweetened azuki beans (known as pat, 팥).It was sold by street vendors. In contemporary culture,  it has become a very elaborate summer dessert, often topped with ice cream or frozen yogurt, sweetened condensed milk, fruit syrups, various fruits such as strawberries, kiwifruit, and bananas, small pieces of teok (rice cake), chewy jelly bits, and cereal flakes). Then we played games with them. Their favorite was bowling. It was so awesome. They loved it. I was so cool. Normally, they just sit and talk and i think they get bored, but we came and they were all laughing and having fun. It was the best. But ya so the service place put thing in the newspaper and guess who the picture they put in it was....me the link to the website that the article is also on it 
www.iksannews.com/Include/News/News_print.asp?tni_num=401204&local
....it cuts off i hope I gave you enough to find it. So ya I'm famous now,
jkjk . 

Im doing  good though. Sorry to hear about Grace (Elder Rice's niece) and lactose intolerance but that chocolate milk substitute is awesome. She will
love it!

So Ethan and Cameo (Elder Rice's brother and sister in law) are having a girl 
hahaha. That's cool.Will Ethan take her hunting or will she hate it is my 
question?

So my companion is super awesome! We practice our lessons in companion
study and our lessons go so much better, and our english class is so
much better. Before it was so boring now its fun.And we invited some people to come that saw our English flyer and they came and they will meet us again this week-super excited. My compainion loves Rubiks cube and he is super cool. And ya awesome.

This week was cool a couple weeks ago, I was on a bus, and when I got
on, these non Korean, non American people were looking at me and talking
(creepy right). Then, I'm sitting on the bus and some one comes behind
me and says something I don't understand. I was like "What? He was like
"Oh sorry,  I thought you were Russian." I was like, "No I'm American." Then
we talked for a while, and he is from Uzbekistan working here, and he
is super cool. Last Saturday, we played soccer with him and a
friend. I'm hoping this can turn in to a great finding and teaching
opportunity.But its cool, I never met someone from Uzbekistan before.
Now I have haha. 

Our super awesome couple with the baptisimal date... :( their "water broke" (term for baptism date falling through) and we  haven't been able to meet them. So we went and visited anyway and only stayed like 20 mins and he had to go teach English. There is an unseen force trying to keep us from meeting them, because there so awesome Agggggggg. But we will pray like crazy because we are on the Lord's side and that is and always will be the winning side.

So, today I want to talk about How much Heavenly Father Loves His children. People have a perception that He is mean. No He is not! If He was, He wouldn't give us prophets and prayer and scriptures. But there are rules that He has to follow: the laws of mercy and justice. He gave us commandments to make us happy, and in Doctrine and Covenants section 130,verse 20-21

20 There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations 
of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—
 21 And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience 
to that law upon which it is predicated.

It says for that for every command he gave us, there is a specific blessing attached. So when get get blessed, it's because we obeyed a commandment. How awesome. The scriptures tell us the commandments and the blessings attached to them. He told us this so that we can receive more blessings. Because He, like all good parents, wants us to be happy and He wants to bless us a lot. There is another side to this. There must  needs be opposition in all things. When we disobey, there is a punishment attached to it. But Heavenly Father, in His infinite love, has provided a way to overcome that. He gave us a Savior, and he suffered the immense pain of our mistakes so we can be forgiven AND be happy again and return to Him again someday. 


There is a scripture in 3 Nephi 9:13 (Book of Mormon), 

He says, "... will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, 
and be converted, that I may heal you?"

When I read this, it's like He is pleading with us saying, "Please repent.
I can help you. I want to help you, but you need to ask first." Heavenly 
Father truly loves all of us so much. He wants us to come back to Him. 
In fact, His only goal is for us to come back to Him:
 
"For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality
and eternal elife of man." (Moses 1:39).

He has given us every tool and ability to come to Him. I know that He 
loves us and knows us all. I remember once, I had the flu and it was right
before Christmas,and the family had gone to a Christmas party. I was laying 
on the couch and I felt horrible...the flu is the worst...and I felt like
Heavenly Father didn't care about me. Then I prayed and asked if He
loved me. and I sang the Primary song "Heavenly Father are you really
there"

LDS Primary Song  "A Child's Prayer"

Heavenly Father, are you really there
And do you hear and answer every child's prayer?
Some say that heaven is far away
But I feel it close around me as I pray.

Heavenly Father, I remember now,
Something that Jesus told disciples long ago.
"Suffer the children to come to me..."
Father, in prayer I'm coming now to thee.

Pray, He is there.
Speak, He is listening.
You are His child. His love now surrounds you.
He hears your prayer. He loves the children.
"Of such is the kingdom...the kingdom of heaven." 


and I felt the the most power comforting feeling come over me
and I knew that He loved me and was watching over me.

I'm so excited that Brother Huesing went to the temple. So amazing.
He is so awesome. I bet Elder Beaston would be so happy to see him right
now. I loved hearing Brother Huessing's testimony He knew it was true
and he saw the great blessing that comes from serving our Heavenly
Father. That’s so amazing.


Also I'm sorry to hear about Brother Stone. He was a great person. I
loved most when he taught us his testimony. He talked about life
outside the church and how much happier life is in the church. He
said how all the worldly things that look cool...he said they're not.
He said that true happiness comes from the Gospel. I remember he would
bear this firm testimony in the lessons he taught us and I loved that.
I remember he also told us about getting an education and really told
us the blessings of working hard in high school and he told us to go
on a mission and told all the blessings his son had received from
it. I could tell he really loved us and wanted to help us be good.

Well this is it. I love you family. Be safe send me cookies....
Love you
Love Elder Rice

Pictures:
That’s me and my companion and our English flyer picture. and the other
pic is the newspaper article.