I'm not sure if you've ever heard of fear-induced exercising tactics, but they work. You may have stumbled across a YouTube video a couple years ago where you watched a mother sprint for her supposedly stolen child. You may have been panicked for a couple minutes, until you skipped towards the end to find that it was a paid stunt all along. I would like to share a similar story with y'all today.
On Tuesday, we parked our car in a parking garage and headed to our dinner. However, when we got to their door, they asked us where we parked the car. Apparently, for the past couple weeks peoples cars had been towed within 20 minutes after parking in the wrong place. Well. Haha. To quickly move our car, we raced back to the garage. And well the race didn't end there, we ran every.single.floor. of that wonderfully inclined, 6-level, parking garage to find our car. When we reached the top, we chose to take the elevator down to the first floor. When the doors opened, there was Robbie, our car. You can imagine our happiness.
Okay, but on a serious note, this week was amazing. We were able to teach the Rios family again and everytime we're there you can just feel God's love for them. This family really does have so much potential. Carlos' kids, luis and Ellie, are also sooo cute. For thirty minutes they asked us about the Book of Mormon and what our purpose was on Earth. The curiosity and the urgency they had for each one of those questions to be answered reminded me that I too needed to have the same diligence.
Something that I've really tried to study this week in preparation for Christmas has been Gratitude and leadership. Gratitude for our Savior' birth, and leadership to learn more about His character. I read a talk earlier in the week by Liz Wiseman titled that determined the difference between leader multipliers and diminishers. She specifically targeted three types of leader diminishers: the rescuer, the idea guy, and the pace setter. The rescuer although helps people temporarily, leads people rather helpless in the end. The idea guy, while thinking that he stimulates ideas, ends up chasing his own and shutting others down. And the pace setter although leading by example, may set an unrealistic expectation for his followers. I saw myself in each one of those, and it was kind of a moment to be like wow how does Jesus Christ lead so perfectly?
Then I went back to my first principle. Gratitude. He knows our divine potential that each of us has been given, and is fully confident that we'll be able to reach it. However, in order to even first start that journey he would need to teach us how to be grateful. A quote by Epictetus, a Greek philosopher, said "He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has". Gratitude will help us recognize the confidence of our Heavenly Father in us as well as in other people. It really is such a divine principle.
I hope all of you have an amazing week and remember Christ as we celebrate his birth THIS WEDNESDAY. Thank you all for the support. If there's anything I can do, please dont hesitate to send me an email.
Love,
Hermana Pulver
