6/13/2016

   Hello everyone! This may be my last blog before I go home. I have a little over a week until I leave Madagascar. The two years here have been, as all missions are, challenging, but they have been very rewarding as well. It has been a blessing and a privilege to be able to teach and serve the people here in Madagascar. I have tried to give my best effort to serve My Heavenly Father and I have witnessed how His Gospel changes lives. It is amazing the blessings that Heavenly Father can bestow. He only requires that we keep His commandments and try to live as Jesus lived and, if we do so, he blesses us.     

   Looking back, the time spent here was an opportunity for me to grow in the Gospel and draw closer to Christ too. The Lord never called me to any work, less than a divine work, which helps and strengthens. This is the work of God. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is His true church upon the earth. I have received a testimony of that as I have served here and though my efforts to fulfill this work were the efforts of a young, inexperienced teenager from South Carolina, The Lord molded me into a better missionary, a far greater missionary than I could ever be without His help. I know that this mission was never about me. It was about finding those here who needed to hear this Gospel. The Lord has blessed me so much in my own life that serving a mission was the least that I could do for Him. I can never truly repay Him, the best I can do is to give a life of service and try to  live the gospel. I am reminded of a scripture in the Book of Mormon:

"I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants. 

And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.

 And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him.

 And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast?

 And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were created of the dust of the earth; but behold, it belongeth to him who created you."

   I am so very grateful for the support of each one of you who has followed me along on my mission. The many prayers and well wishes over this two-year journey, have helped me more than you will ever know. I am not sure if I will get the opportunity next week to blog before we leave, but hopefully it will work out. I intend to post a lot of pictures next, one being a baptism that we will have this coming Saturday. Until then.....

Have a great week, everyone!
Elder Pinson