July 4th

Our Ward Mission Leader and his wife invited us to spend the 4th with them, because we're American, he's American.. so we went to Branitzer Park and had a picnic. We also played with their cute 1.5 year old son who FINALLY talked to us after knowing him for 4 months, and boy is he a chatter. This is especially cute because he chats in both English and German.
And when you say, "Hey Sam, what's my name?" he squinches his eyes and says "BABBIIIIIITTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!"
Pure joy.

We had a really neat week. We found a lot of people to teach (pray that they will want to progress!!!) and learned a lot of new words from kids, members, strangers...

As I was reading this week, I thought a lot about focus. About cutting away the fluff and smoke and getting right to the point, and this verse in Mosiah stuck out to me:
11 And the seats which were set apart for the ahigh priests, which were above all the other seats, he did ornament with pure gold; and he caused a breastwork to be built before them, that they might rest their bodies and their arms upon while they should speak lying and vain words to his people.
King Noah made everything he said look good. No matter what type of evil it was, it was surrounded by jewels, gold, yada yada... And as I was thinking about it, everything we are tempted with has some sort of flattery surrounding it. Breaking the law of Chastity, the Word of Wisdom, going into debt, tolerance...
And that was when I realized, again, that God delights in simplicity. As many prophets as there are in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, they all say that they delight in understanding. Plainness. Simplicity. Take away all the fluff, the jewels, the gold, and you see it for what it really is. Gospel truths are not ornamented. They are not hidden by fireworks or fanfare. They are spoken plainly by the prophets, apostles, teachers, manuals and are all found in the Book of Mormon. This is the focus. There should never be any fluff to cut away from the real focus.