WEEK 56 - Red Velvet Cake

Judas this week was so fast. This mission thing is going by concerningly fast. Anyways, how is everyone doing?! I love and I miss you and I hope you know that! I love the story in the Bible with the woman caught in adultery. She gets caught and everyone is like "let's stone her" and they ask Jesus what he thinks about that idea. He tells them that any of them who are without sin should go ahead and cast the first stone, and all of them were "convicted by their own conscience" and left. I imagine this woman crying as she watches all of them drop their stones and leave, but I imagine her worried when Jesus is still there. She probably thought that this was going to be a solo stoning or something, after all He was without sin and had the ability to cast the first stone. Jesus asks her "Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?" Then my favorite part of this story is when He says "Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more." That right there is a pure act of mercy. Just like that woman we have all done "stoneable" things in our lives, we've messed up and we've fallen short many times. On a mission I feel like you experience a lot of those stoneable things. You are expected to do a lot and sometimes you just don't measure up. I have seen missionaries immediately resort to the stoning option, and I have seen missionaries resort to the merciful option. I have recently had a lot of opportunites to extend the arm of mercy out here and I have been so grateful to do so. It would be incredibly selfish for someone like me to not grant mercy when the Lord has been so merciful to me. Guess what? Every single person reading this falls short of perfection, we all require mercy. There might be someone in your life who has done something that you feel is worth stoning, but in all reality we are not the ones to condemn. "Blessed be the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." Haha I remember my beginning emails where my spiritual thoughts were like "did you guys know about this 3 Nephi stuff, cause gosh dang it's blowing my mind." And I'd send that off and be like "wow that's gonna touch some lives" oh the good old days. Anyways here are some notable events from my week: - We had English Class and we were playing hot seat, and I was getting sick and tired of the same "what is favorite color" type questions, so I was feeling a little devious and dropped "alright would you rather eat a baby panda or a penguin" that got the blood pumping and we learned some dang English - When I left for my mission I was super concerned cause I was worried that I couldn't go two years without a steam room, and I was right, and I got in a steam room this week and it was glorious - I was slamming some hot pot this week and the young child of this family decided to join us for dinner completely nude, and what was said when he joined us left me appalled - Mid sacrament our recent convert Billy leans back to me and was like "how to say this word?" and shows me his phone and the word was "urine" which made it difficult for me to fully take in the sacrament with Billy muttering the word "urine" over and over under his breath - Church was awesome, lots of friends came, I love being a missionary Shoutout to whoever is still reading these it's been quite the journey so far. Here is more of the journey (idk) indulge in this story if you would like: - So I was on an exchange with my dearest Elder Turner this week and it was so wonderful, I love him so much. We had a dinner that night with our friend Brianna Day who just got back from Taiwan from her mission, we know literally all the same people, it is so fun to chat with her about them. Anyways, she brings us to dinner at a place called Velvet Taco and the food was delectable. Brianna decides to buy multitudes of food which was neat, but the only problem was that me and Elder Turner can pound some food if given the option. Brianna decided to buy this red velvet cake that is like 1200 calories per slice, little did I know how much of a red velvet cake fiend Elder Turner was. Elder Turner is instantly like "Elder Horsley let's split this" and I think that's a good idea, so I take like a morsel of it and start talking to Brianna and a girl named Diamond. We talk for maybe 15 seconds and I kid you not there is like maybe 3% left of this cake. Gosh dang it I love Elder Turner. We all had a good laugh about it, but it wasn't as funny when we played basketball with our friends later that night. Alex was like "Elder Horsley dunk!" cause I usually do it for him, but I had like so much gravitational pull that just getting off the ground was an unbearable task. But it was such a lovely exchange with Elder Turner and a great night, thank you Brianna for the food. I'm literally 20 minutes from reuniting with the greatest dish of food I had 1 year ago (shoutout Elder Campbell) I am very excited about it. But I LOVE YOU ALL, I really do, I'd love to hear from you! Have a great week! Joinnnn: https://photos.app.goo.gl/qwGY1QhS99ne5wGy8 Pics: 1. Me and Jane 2. Elder Turner put these scent things in his nose and looked like Hitler 3. Elder Turner with a king crab 4. Pre red velvet cake 5. Calling my friend Elder Little 6. Me and Elder Ducos on an exchange 7. Cybertruck 8. Quad 9. Alex wrote me a note 10. Chu Yang looking more than dapper with his new SMU tie