"Oh...By the way."

Hey as far as the plaques go. I would prefer that it be the Republic
of Congo, Brazzaville mission. Mostly because that is what it will be
most of my mission, and we couldn't go to Kinshasa anyways. This has
already basically been a separate mission anyway haha. As far as a
scripture goes.. I wish I had more time, cause I didn't bring my
scriptures or study journal... But I found a good one. Doctrine and
Covenants 42:6 "And ye shall go forth in the power of my Spirit,
preaching my gospel, two by two, in my name, lifting up your voices as
with the sound of a trump, declaring my word like unto angels of God."
That's a pretty cool one.
That's an awesome story by the way that you shared about repentance.
I've really seen the effects of repentance in the lives of the people
I'm teaching. It's important to remember that even the greatest
prophets have had to repent. Alma, Paul, and Peter are just some
examples of that. Many people teach the 5 steps of repentance as
1)Recognize the sin 2)feel guilt 3)Repair the situation 4)Apologize to
the person you offended 5)Reconcile with your Heavenly Father and
never do it again. However many people forget the 6th step, which I
believe is one of the hardest. You must forgive yourself. In Doctrine
and Covenants we read that if we repent, God will remember our sins no
more. We have to recognize that, and when we do, we must forgive
ourselves and use it as a source of strength and growth. A lot of
people ask why God allows suffering in the world. I explain it like
this. Adam and Eve had no suffering, but they also had no joy. Pretend
you have a bucket of water that represents happiness. Then you have a
little plot of land that represents your life, where you're going to
store all your happiness. So you dump all your happiness onto your
life. But what is going to happen? It's going to dissipate, go
everywhere, and then you'll have no happiness. But, if you dig a
little hole of suffering, when you dump your happiness onto your life,
now the hole of suffering is filled with happiness.
Just thought I'd share that :)

By the way, I read this article that I thought I should share with
you. It's called "Inviting Success" its on page 24 of the March 2014
Ensign. It was really good. I liked it a lot.