Week 102: I hate it—but I love it!

What's really, really amazing about emailing is it gives people the opportunity to get the best, most entertaining weeklies they've ever had in their lives.

We're writing over 300 words here!

But the only way you're going to get the results, and the quality emails you want, is that you've got to BRING IT!

Writing weeklies: I hate it—but I love it!

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Alright, enough weirdness. If you know anything about P90X, you'll know that I took that quote above from one of their workout videos and modified it to my needs. It's from one of their 15-minute abdominal workouts, Ab-ripper X. At least one missionary in every companionship has this video, and we all have it memorized.

After a lesson with one of our friends, I was trying to convince him that eating healthy is the way to go, although I'm not that good at it myself. But I recently got back into eating plain yogurt for breakfast. Sure, it's made me dry heave a couple times in the last couple days, but then I feel so good throughout the day that I almost can't live without it. "I hate it," I told him, "but I love it!"

"That doesn't make sense," he said. "You just contradicted yourself. You might as well say, 'This pen is black, but it's white!'" No, no. I think he just doesn't want to admit that he likes plain yogurt.

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This love-hate principle applies in the gospel. The goal is to become like Jesus Christ. That requires a lot of change, which requires a lot of effort. Honestly, it's sometimes so hard to change and it can feel overwhelming, ergo I hate it. But going back to the food comparison, I once ate plain yogurt to the point where tasting sugary cereal made me feel sick. I couldn't believe that my body was actually accustomed to such horrible food! 

The part I love about the gospel is how much my character has changed over time, even unbelievably. Who am I to talk, though; there's still much change that needs to happen. But Jesus Christ suffered and died so that we could change and overcome the effects of sin. If you feel like you need to change but don't know how to achieve it, pour out your heart to your Heavenly Father and tell Him exactly how you feel. He will answer your prayers, just be ready to act!