Hola family and friends,
Every day I learn new things in the mission. It is truly a one of a kind experience. Yesterday, Sunday, I felt so much love from our Heavenly Father. I was sitting next to Jack, one of our valiant Primary kid investigators who doesn’t come from a good home. (I asked him if his mom knew he was here at church and he said, no. He just roams free.) I just want to adopt Jack and give him a better chance at life. His parents won’t let him be baptized right now but he is setting the goal to be baptized in a few years. It is so ironic that the people who can be baptized don’t want to and those who want it can’t. When the members of the church went to the pulpit to bear their testimonies, I told him, “All of these people here are part of your family. You can ask any one of them for help and they are here to help you.” I want so much for Jack, and others like him, to have another opportunity to have a better life.
We are teaching Wilma, who is a widow of two weeks. She doesn’t want to pray or feels insecure or we don’t know what her doubt is, but she doesn’t pray. We wrote the steps of prayer in large print and we practiced and she repeated, but she just looks at us and smiles and doesn’t pray. I was so sad, because I was thinking of how much pain she feels that could be relieved and how Heavenly Father was sad because she didn’t talk with him. Then, I remembered something humbling. I will confess that the night before, I didn’t pray before I went to bed. I remembered the times that my prayers are just mechanical and not heartfelt and then I felt sad. That is exactly how Heavenly Father feels. I realized that Heavenly Father wants to hear from me personally, that He is interested and cares about me and wants to know what is going on in my life, what my goals are, what my doubts are, etc. It was a special experience that I hope everyone can have.
I know that Heavenly Father lives and that He hears our every sincere prayer and that He gives us exactly what we need. (I prayed that the elders wouldn’t call us so we could go to bed a little earlier and the elders called us early in the morning instead, something that rarely happens here.) Oh yeah, and we were hungry after fasting and didn’t have any food, but when we went to the appointments, they gave us chapo (banana drink) and bread and the president of the Relief Society served us peanut butter and crackers. I know that Heavenly Father takes of our spiritual and our temporal needs. He is the best.
We have a new area, Barrio Amazonas. Now we have 2 areas. The people are so excited to have missionaries in their area after a long time. We are helping the Relief Society to organize a night of fellowshipping. Oh yeah! If there are activities, that is what I love to organize. I’m such a nerd, but we have such unity with the leaders that one of the highlights of our week is when we get to have the Ward Council and Mission Correlation. Working with the people here is so great. They are so willing to help, they serve the Lord with the very best that they have, and they are humble.
We did the community service project the other day with the YSA and it brought about some good results. We are going to do more service projects as a ward, with the Young Men and Young Women. It is good public affairs and it helps unify the members who serve. We have gained the confidence of the zone by sharing our 5 minute microwave brownies. They are so incredible and will change your life. We are sharing more recipes with the Relief Society, including no bake cookies (there is a man in the ward who makes peanut butter, so we are enjoying this), and instead of lemon bars, with maracuya (a fruit that is yummy and plentiful here).
Have a great week!
Love,
Hermana Christensen
