On Garfield and Homer Simpson

I've tried to avoid letting people know this, but once you meet me, it becomes pretty obvious.  


I am very fit, and keep in good shape.  After all, round is a shape.


Lately, I've been gaining more weight.  When I entered Wilmington about a two months ago, I weighed about 270 pounds.  Yes, I know that that's a lot.  However, when you consider that this is 20 pounds less than when I started my mission, I thought it was pretty good.


Maybe I ought to inform you about a bit of LDS culture.  I am what is called an Elder, which is a title for missionaries.  Every so often, the members of our church invite us over to their houses for a spiritual message.  Most often, this takes the form of an invitation to eat.  I mean, what better way to do it?  Dinner and a show!


Anyway, since I've gotten here, I've realized that everyone, and I mean everyone, gives us something to eat.  It might be small, an apple here, a soda there, a plate full of rice and beans there, tostadas with soda, juice... It's all made so much harder by Hispanic culture, which says, "if you reject my food, you reject my hospitality and my friendship."  Very rock-and-a-hard place deal.

I've tried the "What people give you" diet, which is to just eat breakfast and what people give you.  I've counted the calories, and they all add up to more than 2000 calories per day.


I think the only option that I have left is to stop eating with people, and learn to say no.  There's just some things that aren't good for you.


It's all a matter of choice, really.  I have the option of not eating, which though harder, would help me to lose weight.  Why is it always so hard to eat right?


A king named Benjamin tells us the answer in a sermon to the Nephites.  He said, 

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.  (Mosiah 3:19)

As a natural man, I want what pleases me.  I want to be lazy, not work, and have the world delivered to me on a silver platter.  What a pity that this doesn't seem to work.  It won't get anyone to heaven, either.  We have to work hard, trust in Christ, and allow Him to help us.

Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to tell the Hernandez family tomorrow.

(Also, this is a link to a post from a blog I stumbled upon.  It has one of the best diets I've ever found.)
The Zombie Diet