A new year

Already the second of the first month of a new year - decade even - has rolled around! One of the members today in their testimony said that pity it is not the 1st today! Practically it should make no difference to how you behave! A point that most tend to overlook is that today is the first day of the rest of your life! What you do with the time allotted to you is what makes a difference - or at least should! Too many tend to live from day to day - virtually hand to mouth, and what they do - or dont do - makes no difference in the Eternal scale of things! Sure, Genghis Khan was probably not a great human, but he sure made sure that he joined the ranks of people remembered for something!

Absolutely he and Adolf Hitler made the world not so pleasant to live in, but they were excercising their agency, even if it was eliminating others the right to their agency!

I just think back to when I was stabbed, and one of my attackers was killed - by his "friends"! You can be sure that he was not remembered much past 2 weeks after he stabbed me! Sad really that he made little or no impact on history! Question remains, was what he got from robbing me, worth much? I fear that he will eternally regret stabbing me! I still have a feeling that the 2 of them broke in to rob me of excess stuff, and I was regrettably in the way, and they knocked me unconscious, then stabbed me 8 times! I do not feel that the incentive to breaking in was not so much greed as fear! They stabbed me so that I would die and not identify them! Thank Heavens, my life is at the mercy of my creator, and not at the mercy of robbers!

Today, I presided in Sacrament meeting (MMWC - or Main Manna What Counts) since I was the holder of the most senior position at the Branch today! It felt great to be in control of the meeting, rather than acting at the whim of another holder of the Priesthood of God! I commented that some 19 years ago, I was scared of talking in a crowd larger than 2, especially if 1 of these 2, were me! 19 years gives you a different outlook on life! The way I see it is, it has been centuries since a speaker was beaten to death by an insensed congregation! I have to admit though to feeling a mite inadequate though! maybe this is a good feeling, in that you are open to suggestions of improvement! Once you are too proud, you feel over-important and are on a really slippery slope! Presiding in a meeting is not a new thing to me, since I was Presiding Elder at our Esikhawini Branch (that was tiny, and I started calling it a twig! This has subsequently become an accepted name for units not yet big enough to be branches!) It is still putting myself outside of my comfort zone! Being out of your CZ is great, because you are not complaceant. The concepts of "Compaceant" and "humble" do not exsist in the same universe!