My Talk on Charity

Cara Famiglia,
Here is my talk on charity. Sorry about the spelling and if it is a
little unorganized, I get too many thoughts and then I cannot pin them
down fast enough or into something cohesive.
 I hope you like it anyway.
Love you tons!!!!!
Sorella Comollo

        Becoming A Saint
By Sorella Comollo

        If you were to go up to an average Joe in Italy, I guess he would be
called an average Giuseppe, and ask him what does is mean to be a
saint, he would probably say something like this, a pretty much
perfect person who lived a good life in the service of others. If you
asked this average  Giuseppe if he thought he could become a saint,
unfortunately, he would probably say no. Moving away from the apostate
doctrine that saints can save us and that one must be inessence
perfect in order to be considered a saint, we learn from the doctrine
of the restored gospel that each of us has the potential to become a
saint by putting off the natural man.
        In Mosiah 3:19 it gives us the best advice on overcoming the natural
man and becoming a saint, it says, “For the natural man is an enemy to
God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and
ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and
putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement
of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble,
patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord
seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his
father.”. It lists that the atonement will help us overcome the
natural man and then it goes in to other attributes that can help us
overcome. All of these aspects mentioned encompass charity.
        We learn more about charity in Moroni 7:45, which describes exactly
what charity consists of, it says,  “And charity suffereth long, and
is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own,
is not easitly provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in
iniqiuty but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all
things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”.
        When I was pondering over these attributes of charity I realized that
one can only experience true charity when faced with opposition. For
example, if there was nothing to suffer how can one develope
long-suffering? This concept is well explained by the scriptures in 2
Nephi 2:16, it explains, “Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that
he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself
save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.”. We
are to act for ourselves to develope charity, we are to act for
ourselves if we would like to become a saint.
        I thought by coming on a mission I would automatically become a
better Latter-Day Saint. My view of a mission was that it would act
upon me to make me become a better person. This is not so. I am
learning the only way to grow and become a sanctified disciple of
Christ is for me to act rightously against the oppostion. I realize
now the only way to develope this discipleship, especially on a
misson, is to develope charity.
        The scriptures give us the key on how we need to act to increase
charity, that is to overcome what the natural man would do and start
doing what the saint would do. We can be long suffering with a less
active family, even when they do not come to church week after week
for we can have patience and pray for them, asking for assistence from
the Lord in how to help them week after week. We can think kindly of
the older woman who will not even let us finish our sentence before
she slams the door in our faces, instead of getting angry. Instead of
envying a companion's grasp of the Italian language, we can ask
him/her for help to improve. We can endure doing finding and not get
discouraged even after a man yells at us to leave him alone. When a
lesson goes really well instead of being prideful and attributing the
success to our own abilities, we can realize with humility that it was
the Holy Ghost helping us along. We can hope with all our heart that
an investigator will feel the spirit and have the desire to start
reading the Book of Mormon, instead of thinking that she will never
change. We can bear all things, bearing rejection after rejection,
praying that someday these people will have a change of heart. We can
believe that God keeps his promises, that he blesses us as we obey and
that his blessings come in divinly inspired ways and not as the world
would expect. By working on developing these attributes of charity,
and aspects of missionary work and life, how can we not develope love,
pure love, the love that Christ has?
        The other condition, in overcoming the natural man and  becoming a
saint, that we learn from Mosiah 3:19, is that it occurs through the
atonement. Out of all of the examples I could give of Christ showing
charity to others this would be the ultimate one. President Joseph F.
Smith described, “the great atoning sacrifice...” as, “love made
manifest”.
        We cannot only become a saint --holy, free from blemish-- with our
actions to develope charity alone, the only way and the most important
way is through the sacrifice that Christ made. As we use the atonement
in our lives our developing the attributes of charity will become more
attainable. As we use the atonement in our lives even the average
Giuseppe can become a saint.