I am so thankful for this opportunity to serve my mission here in Chile. It is an incredible experience to give up every personal care and desire and devote every second to serving the Lord and serving my fellow man. But as Mosiah 2:17 teaches us, when we serve one another, we are serving the Lord.
Therefore, it all comes down to love. If we truly love the Lord, we will want to serve Him. We will want to obey His commandments. When we serve God and obey His commandments, we allow the Lord to bless us. The Lord wants to bless us, but can do so only when we do our part.
There is a quote by President [Ezra Taft] Benson [1899 - 1994] that says something like, "When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, in that moment God will endow us with power from on high." This has been something that I have been working on as of late: showing God that I truly love Him and that I want to be obedient.
Right now in Chile it is starting to warm up. School will be getting out for summer break in a few weeks. Summer is just beginning and the temperature is reflecting that. Luckily, I am very close to the coast right now, so it does not get too terribly hot.
However, I am not very happy with the sun right now, because it seems he has taken it as his personal responsibility to beat down on me until I am red as a radish. He shall not prevail! Don't you worry mother, every morning I rub on my SPF 50 armor to protect me from his attacks.
But anyway, as I was saying before I went off on that random tantrum about the sun, the seasons are changing. November is almost over and then we'll be in December. A song keeps going in my head, "It's beginning to feel a lot like . . . summer?" It will be quite weird to have Christmas in the middle of summer.
This week was a kind of tough week. Some of our investigators that we have been helping are not willing to keep the Lord's commandments and therefore cannot progress and receive the blessings. However, the Lord gives us trials so that we can be humble and learn to have true faith, or as Ether says, "the witness comes after the trial of faith." For after having a very difficult week, the Lord blessed us with some great new investigators.
We have been working on talking to everyone in the streets and not letting a single person pass us by. On one occasion at the end of this week, a mother and her children got off a bus right in front of us and we quickly walked up to them and started to talk to them about the Church. We visited them yesterday and taught them about baptism. They are very humble and loving people. The Spirit was very strong in the lesson and it taught the family about the truths that we were sharing.
Olivia (the mother) and Nelson (her 13-year-old son) accepted baptismal dates for the 19th of December. It was really cool in the lesson, because before we taught about the essentials of true baptism (age, authority, and submersion), she told us that her son wasn't baptized into the Catholic church until he was twelve because she wanted him to be able to choose for himself and because she didn't believe that babies had the ability to sin. Then later she told us that "She was looking for the real baptism and everybody knows the true baptism is by immersion." I am very excited to help them come unto Christ.
Javiera gave birth to Aaron on Friday. A little note about Spanish. In Spanish "to give birth" is said "dar la luz," which literally translated means "give the light." I think that is a beautiful way to look at it. Both Javiera and Aaron are doing fine.
I am so thankful for you, my family and friends. Each of you teaches me so much. I thank our Heavenly Father constantly for each of you. I am thankful for all the little things that God has given me.
Here is a quote that I love from President Monson's talk this last [general] conference, "Regardless of our circumstances, each of us has much for which to be grateful if we will but pause and contemplate our blessings." I hope you each take a moment to think about the blessings that God has given you and then thank Him.
I love my mission!
No comments:
Post a Comment