Doctrine or Psychology

This week has been really interesting. We had zone conferences all week, and then leadership council on Friday, so I haven't been doing what I normally do all week. I got to hear a lot of really good stuff, and we changed some rules! Ever since we got a new president, we've been waiting for that to happen and it finally did. We can now eat with the people!! It is amazing! I'm so excited! It's something I had been thinking about a lot, and now if somebody offers us something, we can for the most part, eat it! It's really a blessing because giving food is such a huge part of the latin american culture, and we feel really bad refusing the food the people have prepared. It's awesome!

We also got to talk to a psychologist in the zone conferences, who talked to us about virtue. It was so interesting! He talked about how if you imagine your favorite food, really vividly, you start salivating. Our minds can't or don't distinguish most of the time between imagination and reality. He talked about how when we have a thought in our heads, we have about 3 seconds to decide if we want to respond to it. If the thought stays in our heads longer than 3 seconds, our bodies will physically respond to it, obviously depending on the thought. So, those 3 seconds are crucial, because bodily responses often function as a positive feedback loop, in that once it starts, it's way easier to keep going than it is to stop. He showed us how in the same way, if we shout "STOP!" in our heads, our mind responds, and all our mental processes stop. If we then fill our mind with virtuous things, scriptures, hymns, The Living Christ, family, spiritual experiences, then we can prevent bad thoughts from having any effect on us.

He made really clear the distinction between temptation, sin, and weakness. Temptation is an opportunity to exercise our agency and faith by trusting in God and following the commandments. Sin is ceding to temptation, and breaking a commandment. Weakness then, is the lack of knowledge, power, and holiness, caused by our mortal condition. We can recognize moments when we are weak, and plan to be strong in those moments, making them more spiritual. We can put up spiritual pictures, we can turn on spiritual music, or we can avoid those moments all together. He talked about how as we do that, our "dominion will shall be an everlasting dominion" (D&C 121:46), and that dominion is a synonym for self-control. It really struck me the fact that virtue is not a passive concept. It's a constant struggle and constantly applied.

I really loved to hear the scriptures applied to psychology. It was another testimony to me, that if we really study the scriptures, look for revelation, and follow the revelation we receive, we will be able to overcome any problem. It is absolutely amazing!!

Love you all!