ISABELLA'S LETTER
Straight Forward and From The Heart!
well i cant send pictures this time becuase my memery card reader was
a bit warped from the heat of sending it from utah to bolivia so it
finally broke. but i will send pictures next week promise. its not
this week its next sunday when i find out when i leave i lost track of
the weeks,the bishops thinks we are the only ones responsible for the
success of misionary work. i gave examples of temporal our district
leaders ward where they baptize so much because they have the bishops
full support and the members refrences and the ward misionary plan we
prepared is great it would work, the bishop really liked it but it was
announced for all of the members to hear it and only 18 people went
and we were expecting the leaders to go, only one went. we asked him
what his plan was what he suggested and he simply said its good. in 4
weeks we will announce it to the ward during sacrament meeting. what
even more discuraging is that when someone misses church he asks us if
we know why, and we usually do know why they missed. i feel very
overhelmed i feel like we are in charge of everything. finding
investigators, picking them up making them feel welcomed protecting
them from some of the bad habbits that some ward members have,
retaining them when they do get baptised and making sure that are
befriended. i will give you this we were to prepare the missionary
plan, it took us 4 hours then we needed to prepare the refreshment.
our ward mission leader is trying his best but this is all very new to
him he went to buy everything and make 50 photocopies, and we were to
present it to the ward. the bishop just showed up and then complained
that we should have had a meeting just with the leaders first. and i
said well why bishop if every member is a missionary not just the
leaders. to say the least this week was hard, gruling and stressful.
and too top it off an elder gave me the feed back during a practice
that i was too straight forward. which made me feel bad because he
added that maybe i was scarying investigators away. to which i just
responded braking the law of chasity is a serious sin and the
investigator cant guess it he needs to fully know it. but there was a
huge blessing for me this week, in every lesson, every person we
taught said you really understand me, or i feel what you are saying is
true or the one i most liked you reached my heart. and then the same
elder confessed that while teaching a refrence we gave him about the
law of chasity she said to him elder get to the point, im not supposed
to have sex if im not married right? well then just say that. really
it feels like i have been here forever. i looked at my companion and
said if the president leaves me here again i will call him and say
pray again of course i was just joking but my companion bust out
laughing and said maybe they will white wash this place and we stayed
up late last night imagining what the ward would say if one sunday we
just didnt show up one sunday and sent elders to say the president
prayed over the area you are left alone to carry on with all of the
missionary work... later! and we laughed and giggled and said well we
are here because the Lord needs us here and said goodnight and dream
of fleeing both my compi and i dreamt of flying or traveling far far
far away. my mother han crossley wrote me and reminded me that about a
year ago she picked me up to train me. i had great times there in san
jose. i miss rogelio and mabel and griselda and hna muniz and everyone
else in that ward.
well goodbye have to go
hna florido
CHRISTOPHER'S LETTER
The Road Home
I am so happy. I can feel a great joy in my heart. I can feel the great change
of heart that Alma talks about in Alma 5. I am so far from perfect, but right now
I can feel the spirit. I really liked that quote by Elder Ballard. It is like the saying
that says the truth will set you free. I like that. It is beautiful and it feels just to me.
We have to wait to baptize the family. They didnt come to church this week, but
I know that they will get baptized. There are lots of challenges, but I think that I
am beginning to have the faith that I need to begin to baptize families.
I didnt tell you, but I love you, Mom, Dad, Isabel, Grandma, Grandpa. I love you
all so much. I hope that you can search for the change that God desires of every
one of us. A Bob Dylan song says that a man not busy being born is busy dying.
I agree. I know that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that the Book of Mormon
is true, that God communicates with a Prophet on earth and that angels (celestial
beings) come to teach the gospel.
My new companion is Elder Paz (peace) from Guatemala. He is a really, really amazing teacher and I have learned a lot in 5 days. He has 18 months in the mission and is really great. I will send you a picture of him next week.
I hope that you are all well. I feel like I dont know you or like for all of my life
I was sleeping and now I am just waking from a bad dream. The Gospel of
Jesus Christ really does change people... I am grateful. I need to save some
photos to my camera, but I want you to know that I love you so, very, very
much. And I look forward to getting to know with a sane mind and a pure heart
that the Lord has blessed me with in the mission.
With lots of love,
Elder Hill
No comments:
Post a Comment