Hi family!
This week was a crazy one, but very good! Time is starting to really fly to say the least. I still feel like I have so much to learn that somedays I feel like I haven't learned anything, but then I turn to my companion and help her memorize the first vision, and say to myself, okay, maybe I have learned a little bit in the time I've been here. weird.
On my birthday I had a few surprise calls to wake me that just made me really happy. One of them was from the mission couple in the office, Hna. Clawson, who told me that the only person that could make my birthday happy was me. So I took that advice. I made myself my own brownie, I gave someone else a present, I wore my favorite clothes, we found a new investigator, and we taught a lesson to a family that we're working with. Very different from other birthdays to say the least. But, who wants the same thing to happen every year? psh, boring.
With a family we're teaching we did something new with them called "invoking the powers of heaven" - where they list what they desire for their family, what they are willing to commit to do for God, and what they want God to help them do. By doing this, and keeping their commitments, they "obligate" God to help them have more unity and become one day an eternal family. We'll see how willing they are to follow through with their part to see the hand of God working in their lives.
Me and Hna. Bustinza had our first baptism this week too!! It was no "white night" but it was very very special for this grandma and her grandson. Rosa, mother of two daughters, is separated from her husband and lives with two of her grandsons, one of them who got baptized a few months ago, and the other, Matias, who ever since the first day we saw him has told us how he wants to get baptized. Let's just say the gospel is for everyone.
Christ can heal a 60 year old who has had horrible experiences with depression, sicknesses, and heartbreaks. He can give her hope to start over and begin a new life without sins and without having to look back into the past. He can help her be happy and can give her a family to help her raise hers. She sometimes wears metallic pants, makes delicious sopaipillas (scones), and is the most caring mother.
Also, Christ can make a 9 year old, who doesn't see his mom a lot because she works all the time, and only talks to his dad on the phone sometimes, have so much fun and make him so excited about life. Let's just say he takes notes in Primary about everything that the teacher says and all the scriptures they use, has the Joseph Smith story down pat, loves going to church and during his baptism his little legs almost floated to the top when they dunked him.
part of my letter to President about things I'm learning:
"I know many things happen when there is more responsibility placed upon someone's head; more is expected, more is learned, more is appreciated, and more is found within ones' self. How blessed I feel to be learning the lessons that are in front of me each day.
Before coming on a mission I had the strong impression that I needed to learn many things if I were ever to realize my eternal goals that I had placed for myself. About what the lessons would be, I had little to no idea. As the days of my mission pass by faster than I ever expected, I'm starting to realize incrementally what God had been trying to tell me my whole life, but I didn't realize; these lessons that were necessary for my eternal progression. I think He told me to come on a mission, among many reasons, to learn some of these things.
I could have learned these "life lessons" at other times in my life, I'm sure. But, the mission is so unique in that it forces you to face your biggest weaknesses, your biggest fears, right now; it forces you to figure out what you want out of life, and to strengthen your character. You can't just choose to avoid the hard stuff, you can't just quit and say you'll do it in the future. Many things are depending on you, acting, right now. Your own success and spirit, your companion's future, your investigator's eternity and your convert's salvation.
So with this responsibility, I have felt very small. All part of God's plan, right? To make sure that I'm humble, moldable and dependent on Him. Because there is surely no way that I can do this work without Him. In fact, it has made me so sure that one of the lessons that God wanted me to learn by telling me to go on a mission, was that of my Savior, Jesus Christ.
It seems that continually I am drawn back to the Atonement and how I can apply it in my life. I'm convinced that it's a real love, a real power, that can change us. I'm convinced that it's only Him that can help me rise to the challenges that I'm facing here in the mission. I'm convinced that only He can help me fulfill my responsibilities. How do I reach my goals? How do I find peace with what I am trying to accomplish? How do I find fulfillment? Do the best I can? Love everyone? It's sharing the load. It's sharing the load with my Savior, who is much stronger, much more prepared, much more wise, knows a lot more about the scriptures, knows much more about God's plan for others, and realizes the worth of a soul much more than I do.
It's a process, to build so much trust in someone that you've never seen. But I feel very sure that the promises that He can give me are real, so I will keep trying to overcome my weaknesses, I will keep trying to overcome my fears, and I will keep trying to learn these eternal lessons that my Heavenly Father wants me to learn. How grateful I am for the gospel in my life."
Anyway.... I love you all very much! Hope you can tell that I really love this whole mission thing. And that I am so happy for each of you - in all of your success and accomplishments and "growing up" that is going on.
todo mi amor, besos, y abrazos: su hna. Child
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