Email #89

Dearest Family and Friends,

Sorry, no time! This past week was great, Daniel got baptized! Yuuta's baptism is this Saturday. Exciting stuff. Great week! Please pray for them!

I was thinking about the same thing i shared about last week, how one of the qualities I am trying to work on and that I most respect in others is their ability to feel joy in other's accomplishments and joy. I was reading this week in Helaman 7, where Nephi feels huge sorrow for the wickedness of his people. As I've been thinking about this, I think the attribute I'm thinking of expands to more than just joy. I looked up empathy in the dictionary and it said "the ability to understand and share the feelings of others." I had never thought of empathy of dealing with positive emotions as well as negative. The importance of empathy has been making a huge imprint on my mind recently. Not necessarily sharing the emotions of others, but feeling sorrow for their sorrow or sadness or even sin and feeling joy in their joy and accomplishments. Nephi didn't follow the people in their wickedness, but he understood the consequences of their actions and felt true sorrow for them. Christ's ability to empathize is amazing. Not only did he take up Himself our sins, but He can comfort us and empathize with us perfectly, something I can't always do, even if I've experienced the same thing as someone else. Christ is so perfect, and I need to improve my ability to empathize with others. 

Sorry, I'll send a longer email next week! Love you all!

Love,

Elder Calhoun

Daniel and his dad on Daniel's baptism day!