Hola! It's been another great week in Bellevue- Crossroads Spanish branch!
Once
upon a time, we have a missionary choir. Whoever wants to be in the
mission choir meets at the Stake center right next to the temple every
Monday at 11am, and we sing songs like, I am a child of God and A
child's prayer, and of course, The Time is Far Spent (our mission song.
LOVE.) It is so fun to go to choir because we get to hear from President
Choi and his wife, and it is so fun! They're both hilarious. haha! But
today at choir we sang The Time is Far Spent and it just had so much
more meaning to me all of the sudden. (*Kari Lynn Gardner, please look
at the last 4 words hahahaha *inside joke*) I'd suggest y'all read it
when you have time. "Be fixed in your purpose, for Satan will try you.
The weight of your calling he perfectly knows. Your path may be thorny
but Jesus is nigh you." (Thanks for pointing that out in your letter,
Dad!)
So there is a recent convert that we're working with who is
AWESOME named Teresa, and we're helping prepare her 8 year old son for
baptism. His name is Orlin, and he's SO great. haha! He can stand on his
hands. And say the 10 commandments in 12.56 seconds (
thank you
very much).
Anywho, he knows more about the Gospel than I do basically,
but... he stole a candybar from Walmart the other day. So after General
Conference at the Stake center, Teresa took me and Sister Laney and Orlin
into the kitchen and had us talk the situation out with him. He was
so... distraught I guess you could say. He was completely silent and
angry and resentful. Poor kid. Sister Laney is the best companion ever.
She crouched down and looked him in the eyes and talked to him about
what he did, why he did it, and what he could do to fix it. I can't
really explain why I thought she did such an amazing job, but I just
know that something small like that really changed Orlin's life and
perspective on sin. Teresa and I were teary-eyed as we listen to Sister
Laney explain this to him in childlike, simple terms.
The Doctrine of Christ is centered around having Faith in Jesus Christ
and His Atonement, Repentence, being baptized, receiving the gift of the
Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. I'm here to tell ya, that these
things are just as relevant, or more relevant, to us than to
investigators. We are cleansed from sin every Sunday when we
partake of the Sacrament, and we renew our baptismal covenants to always
remember Christ, take His name upon us, and to do what He would do in
every situation. We constantly need to develop and strengthen our Faith
in Christ and His Atonement. We need to repent daily, in order to become
like Him. That's something I've realized so far. That I have SO much to
repent of every single day. I am so grateful for that aspect of the
Atonement. Because we have the Holy Ghost, we are more able to make
correct choices and know and feel bad when we make incorrect ones. How
we "endure to the end" is by repeating this process constantly
throughout our lives (It's our Missionary Purpose, the 4th Article of
Faith, 2 Nephi 31, Alma 7, 3 Nephi 11-18, and so many other places in
the Book of Mormon.) This, my friends, is how we are all going to be able to return to live with Heavenly Father again. So important.
Also, once upon a time, Sister Laney, me, and Hermano Garcia
(our branch mission leader) were at the mall having our weekly
correlation meeting (we have it at the mall because we can't meet with a
man alone, and because Hmo. Garcia likes smoothies). We were talking
about our investigators and less-actives in the branch that we were
working with, etc. and then all of the sudden this man (hispanic) sits
right down next to Hmo. garcia and right in front of us (facing us) and
says, hola amigos! Que pasa? We were thinking, ummm who is this? And
what does he want? haha it was SO random. His name is Ambrosio. But long
story short, we got a smoothie with him, got to know him, and invited
him to General conference. AND HE CAME! and loved it! We have a lesson
with him tomorrow. Um, tender mercy?! So awesome.
We were tracting the other day in some apartment homes across
from the Stake center the other day and we knocked on the door of this
man from Pakistan. He goes to the mosque right across the street next to
our Stake center. (The Church lets the people that attend the mosque use
our parking lot every day). So this man and his wife let us in and
introduced us to his kids. He let us sing a hymn for them and pray with
them! haha then he said "We did your request, now you must accept
ours....." We were like, ummm. Then he said "you must stay for lunch!"
haha! He had just gotten home from playing basketball with his kids and
now they were making an awesome lunch. He and his family are AWESOME!
haha I love people.
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