Transfers this week

Dear friends and family,

Life here moves onward on wings of missionary-time. For those who don't know, missionary-time is 8 times faster than regular time. That's why a mission seems to end way too fast. We'll have transfers and new missionaries this week. I'm almost positive that I'll be leaving Luanda 2. I've been here my entire mission, and it feels like time. I'll miss it for sure! We find out tomorrow how things will be. I'll let you all know next week! =)

Menina has a baptismal date of March 10th. She's 13, super ready, and has a great family. She'll be the 4th member in her family and we're all really excited for her.

Honestly, not much has happened this week. My companion and I are getting ever-so-slightly better every day. The rules remain a struggle in our house, but we're all growing and things are improving. Life is what life is. I'm reading in The Old Testament lately and love it.

I want to share with you one of my favorite lines from a poem by William Shakespeare. I asked my father to send this stanza to me last week because it applies really well to something that I'm seeing here in Angola right now. It reads:

What win I if I gain the thing I seek?
A wish, a dream, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who buys a moment's mirth to wail a week
Or sells eternity to buy a toy?
For one sweet grape, who would the vine destroy?
Or what fond beggar but to touch the crown
Would with the scepter strait be smitten down?

This is the problem of sin. We sell gold for dross. We spend eternity as a vain thing for a fleeting touch of something that never fulfills. We destroy tomorrow for today, heaven for earth, immortal for mortal, and peace for anguish. When temptations come, I try to remember a line I once heard: My covenants are more important than my desires and my desires should grow to reflect my covenants. Also, as quoted in a movie I once saw: Never do anything to embarass yourself, your team, or your family. Yeah, yeah, I sound peppy and motivational and sappy, but it's all true! Seek ye, therefore, the things things of heaven. They are true, lasting happiness and joy. The gild won't wear off. The finish won't chip. The shine won't fade. Some things, it's true, grow better with age.

My brothers, sister, friends, parents, aunts, uncles, and other various loved ones, I testify to you in the name of Jesus Christ that wickedness, indeed, never was happiness. I love you all. I want to meet you all again one day there in the habitation of our Father. So, I'm making the choice to never again droop in sin or walk in the paths of the damned. I invite you all to do the same in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

With love,

Elder Cody R. Eckman