Elder Alec Lange: What are you putting in your bucket?

Life is good. We are just moving right along with our area. Its been so good. We have 4 people on date and plan on putting some more on date as soon as we can get a lesson with them. Our area is really looking up.

We have been teaching this guy named Mike. He is super awesome. He has tatts and gauges but just loves the church. We are helping him stop smoking this week and he says its been the easiest its ever been for him trying to quit. He is probably going to be our soonest baptism since he doesn't work and he is just eating everything up. Its so awesome. While we teach him we always talk about a strength he will get when he does what he is supposed to. Going to church, reading the scriptures daily and praying all the time. Well as we have been teaching him he said he can feel the inner strength. Something he has never had before. He doesn't quite know what it is but really loves it and how much it is helping him. We have been explaining to him the it is the enabling power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. That is where the power comes from. When you feel like you've hit your limit and cant do much more. That's when the atonement of Jesus Christ play such a huge role in your life.

Its awesome to see the testimonies of others and how they are growing in the gospel. It truly does strengthen me as much as it strengthens them. I've been thinking a lot lately about how everything in our life comes together. Our experiences, our trials, our friendships. Everything in our lives comes together and cultivates this person. The way they act around others, the way they think, the way the up hold themselves. We each have a story. Things that make us, us. I always look at other people and kind of think to myself "Wow they've got a cool story. I look up to them a lot". But as I've been thinking about it I realized my story is happening now. What kind of things am I putting in my life? What things are building me into the person I want to become? I've thought a lot about this lately and the things I want to have in my "story", the things that I want to make me, me. It takes a lot to put things in your life. Life changes experiences that will change you forever, such as baptism. Mine has definitely been my mission. I hope to hold the testimony and person I've become close to me. I hope to be able to keep filling my life with things that are going to make me a better person. Its kinda like a bucket. You can either fill it with bad things or good things. Things that will make you grow or things that will weigh you down. What are you putting in you bucket?