Sister Allison Dittmer: I made banana bread today👍

It has been busy busy!! I was able to watch my friend Rafa that we have been teaching get baptized this past Tuesday! He is a funny kid and asks so many questions so he would know every detail about what was going to happen during his baptism.

These members spoil the missionaries here! The members that signed up for some of the dinners this week were busy so they sent us to a restaurant that their kids worked at and I was able to try some gooood food. One was a food truck called 'Los Primos' which was delicious and the burger was the size of my face. The other restaurant was called '704 Korean BBQ' and this was an experience along with a meal!! I was able to try squid for the first time (would not recommend) and cook the meat right in front of me. Also try some other really yummy Korean dishes I have never tried before!

It has been really cold and rainy this week, which I am grateful for because I am scared for summer to come. But I am doing to well I love getting to know the missionaries in my area, they are all such wonderful examples to me.

Last week we had a member of the seventy come visit our mission, Elder Stanfill, who spoke in this last general conference. He had us prepare a 5 minute talk about one of the Christlike attributes listed in chapter 9(?) of preach my gospel. I will put my rough draft below if you want to read it, because he didn't ask anyone to give their talks. I decided to study humility! So fun to deep dive into a topic that really interests you and being able to see how you can better apply it to your day to day life. So, my invitation to y'all is to go to the Christlike attributes section of preach my gospel and choose an attribute you want to work on and study it this week! I would love to hear your insights and things you learned!

Talk:

You know when you are asked to give a talk, and you study for it using scriptures and then you stumble across a talk and you think, man! This talk is so good, I'm going to quote this line ooo yeah and this whole paragraph is good, I think I'll quote that too. Wow they have some really good thoughts on this! And by the end your 10 minute talk turns into a summarized version of this talk you were reading?

You look at it and go crud, can't do that now can I. Can I? I mean they phrased it really well, and said it so much better than I ever could. Who would know? Oh yeah, God. God would know.

Pause.

What was I doing? I was diminishing my personal ability to write a talk. I was comparing myself with this person who wrote this amazing talk. This is something we barely notice we are doing, if we notice at all. Comparison is such a normal part of life. We walk out of the house and think Wow her hair is gorgeous, I wish my hair was as long as hers. They are so much better at finding new people than me, I wish I could be more like them. Oh they were called as the zone leader, I really thought it was going to be me. And so on, and so on.

But, we can change that mindset. Build others up, wow she has gorgeous hair! How amazing is it that that missionary is finding so many people to share the message of the restored gospel! I'm so happy for the new zone leader!

But sometimes as we build others up, we can be tearing ourselves down. As we are thinking less of ourselves and more of others, this problem goes away. We are able to acquire humility.

But, as I have been talking, we see that humility is a tricky trait to develop and understand. Because as you are "consciously trying to acquire humility it is problematic." So if you think you have it, you don't. We have to develop humility, but how can we develop humility without consciously thinking about it?

We see helpful guidelines for this in Mosiah 3:19

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

As we break this down, to become humble, we need to become as a child, be Submissive, meek, patient, full of love, and willing to give everything to the lord. To be meek we need to be teachable. We need to be able to admit when we are wrong and strive to become better. "Must our needs to be 'right' be so all-consuming?" And As we help others we need not judge them, be patient with their specific needs and love them as Christ and our Father in Heaven do. Lastly, what does it look like to be submissive and willing? When we are rebuked against, how do we respond? Do we argue in return? Or, do we say I'm sorry, what can I do to help fix this, and what can I do better next time?

As we recognize our complete dependence on God, we can become more humble. As Ammon declares in chapter 26 of Alma. Being so grateful unto the lord our god for the things we have been blessed with, his brother Aaron says, "I fear that thy joy doth carry thee away into boasting." Ammons response is what we should strive to have. He continues to praise the lord saying:

Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.

therefore have we not great reason to rejoice?

Yea, we have reason to praise him forever, for he is the Most High God, and has loosed our brethren from the chains of hell.

Ammon continues to, rant, explain throughout the entire chapter, I would consider this a solid rant. Ending with:

Now if this is boasting, even so will I boast; for this is my life and my light, my joy and my salvation, and my redemption from everlasting wo. Yea, blessed is the name of my God,

Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever. Amen.

He is giving everything to God, who gave us this life and the things that we have, who has given us everything. Ammons priorities are exactly where they should be.

When you walk out of this room today you are going to be put right into a world that is built around comparisons. This doesn't mean we need to fall into our regular pattern of comparison. As we are striving to be more like our Savior Jesus Christ. Let's build others up without diminishing our own personal growth. Because my contest is not with anyone else; my contest is with myself. Let's change our focus to others and their needs and lifting them up in their successes. As we do this we become more like our savior, our redeemer, brother, friend. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ amen

(But that doesn't mean we need to give heed!)

"We don’t discover humility by thinking less of ourselves; we discover humility by thinking less about ourselves." Dieter F.Uchtdorf.