Hola todos. A lot has changed in a week haha. We had transfers and I got shipped on out to the city. I live in southern merida now, it's a lot different then the pueblo life! It's kind of awesome, we've already been seeing success in this short half week I've been here. I got a new comp too. He's great, and he speaks English so that's a dub. If I had to complain about a single thing it's that he's too happy, and as a missionary that is not a bad trait to have.
Random things:
- my last day in cansahcab was eating a straight up tongue. From what animal I do not know. He cut it out, boiled it, ate it like a tootsie roll.
- at times here it will be like 105 degrees and the sun is beating down on us, then it'll just start pouring rain. Without a cloud in the sky, it's still just as sunny. At first thought you might think this is awesome or any sort of relief from the heat but NO. the humidity just literally turns to 100 percent and you just get soaked. And you can't tell if you've soaked through your shirt because of the pouring sweat or the hot water pouring on you. It is actually torture haha! I'm convinced hell is not a lake of fire and brimstone, but sunny, 100 percent humidity, and hot rain.
- there is this gal here that I had a cool experience with. Apparently before I got here, the missionaries came to her house and she recognized them. She said elders!! And starts crying. The missionaries, confused, asked her what was wrong. She replies, "I'm a member, and I just remembered. Teach my kids please." She had been baptized 18 years before when she was almost still a kid. Then life happened, and actually forgot of the whole experience. Seeing the elders brought back a flood of memories and she wanted them to baptize her kids. Her 12 year old boy just got baptized and got the aaronic priesthood and passes the sacrament, and they come to church every Sunday now. I met her this Saturday and introduced myself and told her I was from Idaho. She had another overcome of emotions of joy, she told me the missionary who baptized her was from Idaho. Since her kid got baptized she had found pictures of her baptism and showed them to us, and pointed to the young Idaho boy all in white. Who is now probably in his 40s, who has his own little Idaho boy, completely unaware of the lives he's still changing and the gratitude for his selfless service almost 20 years before. The spirit was so strong.
- there was one other white person who came here with me to Merida from the CCM haha! Her name is hermana Merrill and we've become good friends going through the same kind of experiences and teaching in a place and language completely foreign to us. I saw her at transfers and we could actually talk in complete Spanish to eachother for the first time, when other times we had tested it did not go so good.
She also asked me if I had ever had those experiences when I teach and just can't find the words, when other times we can talk perfectly. That happens to me everyday. And she said she was thinking, and realized that when we have those moments where we can hardly speak and it has to be so simple, it's because those people needed to hear it how only we would put it. She said God is using us and our ability, or more the lack thereof, to use us for specific people. And to other people he heightens our ability. She said if God wanted us to be perfect we'd already be perfect, but he's using us exactly how the people need. So much faith! And that's a view of thinking I hadn't thought of before. He's helping all of us, in so specific of ways that most of the time we don't see it. But we need to. Are you going through a trial right now that might be to help someone else? God doesn't give us trials we can't handle, maybe you have yours because you could handle it, and there is a person who is going through the same thing and they need your help. And that's why you had it first. Or a million other things, a true godly characteristic is to think of others before yourself, especially in your trials. I can testify of the blessings that will come.
With regards to my email last week, I am doing much better haha, the highest highs just come with the lowest lows. I hope it was clear that I DONT say those things to their faces. And those thoughts and pains are mine in seclusion. And that is why I was hurting is because I can't make them understand and it's their decision. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the one. And debating about the truth of that is a waste of time. We can have questions of why things are the way they are, and seek those answers. But whatever the answer is it doesn't change the fact this is God's church. And if you are debating that, I have no problem telling you you are wasting your time. There are so many better things to be worried about and to have questions to worry about than the one thing we know to be true that is non negotiable. If we can be humble enough to accept that in its entirety, and always lean back on the knowledge that this is God's church, you will see everything is for a reason.
God can't agree with us on every single thing. There are things we simply cannot understand and comprehend now. To question him and to think you might know a better way is to deny his godliness.
For if God is a socially conscious political being whose views invariably correspond to our own prejudices on every essential point of Doctrine, he demands of us no more then our politics require. Besides, if God is finite, progressive, and Pure Love, we may was well skip church next Sundayto go to the movies. For if we have nothing to fear from this all-loving, all-forbearing, all-forgiving God, how would our worship of him constitute more than self congratulation for our own moral standards? Its like saying, I like this God. It is good to see him every morning while I'm shaving.
That doesn't mean don't have questions, ask them and go look for them. If you doubt the church and you haven't read the Book of Mormon in its entirety I can't take you seriously and your foundation is built on the play sand of the natural man. If there is something you don't agree with then what a better way to test your faith. But for those who turn away because their feelings are hurt or who didn't have the humbleness to know that God knows all and everything will work out, well the play sand might be where you'd like to be instead of the mansions in heaven. IF you don't eventually humble yourself. We all have ups and downs and turning aways to humble us before God. We're not perfect. And thats not what he expects us to be. We cant grow our faith without it being tested and strenthened in the times it wasnt where it should have been. But when the truth is presented in front of us and then we deny it, it is well documented in the scriptures what will happen to you. Does he not promise us that we will soon know all? There's a reason why enduring to the end is a principle of the gospel.
CS Lewis said, " little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle"
What a reality check. We shouldn't be afraid to increase or to have trials because it's a token of our faith and what we can handle. You are going what you're going through because God knows you're strong enough to handle it and because your faith can take it. It's whether or not you choose to let your faith or the natural man control your relationship with your own father.
As always, I have more to say but I shall be courteous and keep it for next week haha. I love you all, please be humble and talk with the lord on what you need to do, and keep trying and fighting for that relationship. Fast and pray, test his love with your willingness to find answers! I can promise you like He does, that you might be quite surprised.
-Elder b
