Beach P-Day!!

It's Beach Time!!

Where did this week go?! Man.. It actually went by super fast!! Nothing too crazy really went down here and it was a pretty normal week. We had our Zone Training Meeting, so that was pretty good. Later in the week, we also went on another exchange with the Zone Leaders. I stayed in Melbourne with Elder Peay again.  We had a super solid day and we met with a lot of less active members, along with some of our investigators! Also we had a less active who hasn't been in years come to church on Sunday! I was asked to give a talk on "Christ the Savior" so he wanted to come check that out. But yeah, the talk went really well. I was asked to be the first adult speaker after the youth speaker, but apparently some miscommunication happened because they announced me as the concluding speaker! I was actually pretty happy about because I had a awesome talk that could occupy a good 30 minutes or so. But in the words of one of our members, being the concluding speaker is either "feast or famine".  Unfortunately, I was only left with about 7 minutes....so basically my talk ended up a testimony. I just wrapped everything up that was mentioned previously and tied it all into how the Atonement of Jesus Christ cannot become a commonplace in our teaching, in our conversation or in our hearts. Speaking in Sacrament meeting truly made me love this ward even more, cause although my time was VERY limited, they all came up and thanked me after, and said they were impressed that I got a solid point across in such a short time.  
 
We did have our district P-day today! Beach P-day all the way and it was such a blast! I mean..other than waking up at 5 in the morning to get there in time it was awesome. We drove all the way to Cocoa Beach, and partied there. We saw the awesome sunrise, played some ultimate frisbee, and chilled. Then we went to Ron Jon's Surf Shop, which is seriously like one of the biggest surfing shops out there!! So we got us some new awesome P-day wear, and also got some Christmas shopping done!!! It has been pretty much a jam packed day already! I got a bunch of pictures I'll be sending out showing all our beach adventures. It's still super strange to be at the beach, on the 14th of December, and it being like 80 degrees outside! Merry Christmas from the beach! If only I brought a Santa hat or something. 

My thought for this week comes from a talk given in conference by Elder Holland and speaks of the Savior.
 
"It was central to the significance of the Atonement, that this perfect Son who had never spoken ill nor done wrong nor touched an unclean thing had to know how the rest of humankind--us, all of us--would feel when we did commit such sins. For His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone, and because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so."
 
1 Peter 3
"For Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that
he might bring us to God"

Through the Atonement of Christ, we can now progress, and ultimately return to live with God! And without the Savior placed into Gods plan, we wouldn't have that blessing!! It's truly come to my realization that our lives have so much more meaning now that we have a Savior in our lives. That through Jesus Christ's ministry, Atonement, and death our lives are blessed immensely. That through Him, we are able to do so much that wouldn't be possible IF a Savior wasn't placed into God's plan/our lives. It's truly humbling to know that we wouldn't be where we stand now if it wasn't for this single but significant birth, life, and death! What a plight our life would be without a Savior.

Thanks for everything! I love and miss you all and I hope you have an amazing week ahead of you! Talk to you next week right before Christmas!

-Elder A. Olson