Fried Squirrel. Horse Meds. And a pro boxer gettin bautizado
Hello people.
I've been living here for about a year and a half now. I don't know how many of you still survive seeing these emails but if you do le felicito.
I accidentally sat down and wrote way too much this week so sorry for the long email.
Today in the office work we´re sending home all the hermanas from my generation of missionaries. H. Lindsay asked me how I felt that they were all going home now and I still gotta be here for another 6 months. That was pretty savage of her but alright.
Jaja no but honestly it is super cool. One of my favorite phrases I've heard from President Choy recently about our missionary service is: "We are Just. Getting. Started."
A long spiritual thought...
Right now as missionaries, we just show up here as high school kids and as for our knowledge and testimony of the impact of the doctrine of Christ, many times we´re like little newborn kittens just barely starting to open our eyes. But as you go studying, and serving and wrestling with the adversity every day, you begin to open those eyes and see some things. You learn and you grow and your faith can become something unshakeable. But the coolest part is that this really is just getting started. It won't end when you finish the mission. The principles of life I should be living here are the same I should be living after the mission.
I really like a scripture that President Choy shared with this thought too, that's in Moses 1:39. This is where God is speaking face to face with Moses, and God shares with Moses what his purpose as God is:
"For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal li
Yeah man, our Heavenly Father is real. He has a face, he has a real physical body (on a completely different level of glory then our mortal bodies of course, but we are made in his same image) he has feelings, and he has a purpose for all that he's been doing. And that purpose is for your immortality, and your eternal life.
First of all: Immortality. To make you immortal, means that Heavenly Father plans to help you overcome physical death so that you can live forever.
Eternal Life: Heavenly Father is not only concerned in the length of your life, but in what kind of life you will have. He desires that you live out eternity in His presence, where you can continue progressing and learning with him.
What is the way that he has provided so that we can obtain said immortality and eternal life?
- Jesus Christ came and spiritually suffered for and payed for all of our sins, opening the path for our spiritual redemption which opens the door to Eternal Life,. If it is that we choose to simply accept and live by Christ's conditions of repentance and baptism in his name.
- He also physically died, and was physically resurrected, gaining power over physical death making it so that one day, each of us will be resurrected at the day of his return to Earth.
This is His work because it's what he labors night and day to help you obtain. And it is His glory because it is what brings him joy. That you can live eternally with him one day if you simply choose to follow the doctrine of His son, Jesus Christ, our Redeemer.
It's what brings God joy, and as missionaries, we get to partner with him in bringing all people to a knowledge of the Redeemer, and of his doctrine that by following, will bring us this immortality and eternal life. And it's just getting started because we don't stop after the mission, and we don't stop after we ́re grandpas, and we don't stop after this mortal life because you can bet that we gunna be preaching as angels over there. But all who follow God, will be able to participate in his same work and glory, and we can do it forever. This is just. getting. started.
Fun stop:
- My companion got parasites so the doctor gave him horse dewormer medicine.
"For use in horses only. This product should not be used in other animal species as severe adverse reactions, including fatalities in dogs, may result."
- The power went out in the office so we went outside to the transformer and the powerline to figure out what happened. We discovered an electrocuted squirrel laying in the grass. r.i.p.
- This week we got audited by the church financial department. On that same day that only comes around once every three years, one of my comps left his key on the inside of the bunker making the room full of documents that needed to be audited unopenable. So we had to break open the back window and duct tape a bunch of metal poles together to reach in and open the door while we distracted the auditing department with a free lunch. Thought I might get excommunicated for a second there but we good. Mission accomplished.
- The Coc family randomly pulled up to the mission office one afternoon right as we were heading out. We piled into the back of their car and they took us to lunch where they told us that they were still working on the papers so that Julio and Yanira can get married, but that Bryan was going to get baptised this saturday! They also gave me a sweet shirt with our picture on it from one of their first Sundays at church with us. That was awesome.
(I´ll upload a picture of the shirt next week)
- We got to organize the transfers in the mission. That extra fun this time because Elder Prach let me do it so that I could learn how to, even though I don´t know how to porque thats how ya gotta learn I guess. We had Elder Marchant bake us brownies and order pizza hut to cope with the stress and the tears of organizing a 20 route web of transports in order to move around the mission according to the president ́s command. My brain is dead. This work is awesome.
- Carlos Wilfredo Aviles
A while ago this guy named Wilfredo responded to a facebook ad asking to receive missionaries like us in his house. Our first phonecall with him he was like "Yeah, I saw the ad and I thought you guys could help me get a bible. Because I lost mine and I´m scared to ask anybody for one because they´ll make fun of me"
One thing led to another, we came and visited him, first visit we talked to him a bit about what Jesus Christ taught as his gospel. He had lots of good important questions like "Why did God let his Son die for us?" "How do I know if I´ve received the Holy Ghost?" "How does someone prepare to be baptised, and who is it that can baptise someone?" He also expressed how he views baptism as something very serious and important as it is a binding promise with God. So in that first visit we offered to help him prepare for his baptism, where he can prepare to make a covenant with God that will allow him to receive the gift of the holy ghost. Wilfredo pondered a moment about what we had taught, reviewed some of the blessings of receiving baptism and the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and he was like "Well, yeah this does sound really good to me. My next day off is this saturday if we wanna program it for that day" What a man of faith. We explained to him we'd like to at least have him come to church a few times and learn a bit more first, but that we´d love to keep helping him.
Well to sum things up, we kept visiting him, we found out more of his story, that he was a professional boxer and fought competitively in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, has a wife and kids, but a few years back when he was working
Well, after some difficulty, he fought off some coworkers bullying him for stopping drinking coffee, he helped in a funeral of his family, and then yesterday he came to church for the first time
He loved it. We gave him a tour of the building and afterwards as we were walking out I asked him how he felt, and he said something like: "Hmm yes, I liked it very much. I think from here on out I shall continue attending for the rest of my life. I'd like to be baptised next sunday if that's okay with you. Is there any reason anybody would not be baptised here?" Wilfredo knows what's up here.
Julisa
Julisa also showed up. I'm running out of time to write here but basically she started going to church with her boyfriend who was preparing to leave and serve a 2 year full time mission. Well he left now but she kept going, kept learning, and wanted to follow Jesus Christ and get baptised but had some difficulties to overcome first. The last difficulty being talking with her family about her decision because even though she's an adult she doesn't want to do it against their will. But yesterday we asked her how talking with her family and praying had went, and she told us that her family had supported her decision to be baptised and she was like "Yeah I was thinkin this tuesday'' MIRACLESSSS
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