Love can be our only motive - Week 43

Hey everyone!

Happy early fourth of July!

Its quite exciting to serve as a missionary during all of these holidays as it really is quite different from the usual routine of how things work! We have permission this year to stay out till 9 for the 4th of July so that will be interesting to see how that all works out! I didn't get a picture with Elder Hamel yet so ill get one next week, but he is from Gilbert, Arizona and he actually only has about 3 more weeks left on his mission! so its fun to get to know him. The area we are in is actually the Copper Cloud, Saw Tooth Creek, Bridge Tower, and Linder Wards) 

My thoughts of the week come from this talk I listened to this week. 

"I keep asking myself, “What if our only motive were love? What if everything we did, we did out of love?” There are all kinds of motives out there. And many of them are not pretty. We might be motivated by revenge or envy or greed. Selfish motives are abundant. As students, we might be motivated only by grades or by our desire to get into graduate school or to begin a career. These are not necessarily evil motives, but they’re not enough. We might get straight As. We might get into the best graduate school. Or we might land the best job offer imaginable. But, again, as Moroni taught: “If [we] have not charity, [we] are nothing.”

We can even do good things with less than laudable motives. Quoting his father, Mormon, Moroni wrote that if we give “a gift, [and] doeth it grudgingly; . . . it is counted . . . the same as if [we] had retained the gift; wherefore [we are] counted evil before God” (Moroni 7:8; see also verse 9). Motives matter. They matter a lot. In the end, why we do things is probably more important than what we do. Evil acts are always motivated by evil motives. But acts that might appear to be good on the surface may not be fueled by pure motives. And one of the purest motives of all is love.

So is it possible to do everything we do out of love? Is it possible to study because we love the Lord and His children? Is it possible to be motivated by love when we take a test, read a chapter in a textbook, complete an assignment, or answer a question in class? Is it possible to love someone who has wronged us? Can love be our only motive?-- " 

I really enjoyed this idea. And how it applies to my mission and all aspects of our lives. Praying for the gift of Charity is something I have been trying to do alot on my mission, because with it I have realized i have enjoyed missionary work sooo much more with that lens of charity. The Savior truly did teach a higher law that its not just about what we do but its about what we think and our inner desires. I would invite all of us to consider what can we do better this week to have more love in our motives.

Keep smiling!

Love, Elder Gerrard