Mexico Week 35 -- Todo Lo Puedo en Cristo Que Me Fortalece

Buenas tardes mi familia eterna, 

So turns out at least six more weeks here in Tlaquepaque with Hermana Malacara! Woo! Hoo! The elders called us at about 10:30 last night.  They always call at about 7:30pm, so we were all nervous and tight stomached for so long!  We had so many people nervous too.  All day long when we arrived at their houses, they would ask, ¨Sooo, what’s the news? Is somebody leaving?¨.  We had to inform a few people after the news arrived! I am going to be honest ... I literally squealed. I’m not really good at the whole goodbye thing. Get ready for one crazy transfer after so much work! 

These are my new favorite pants!  They are green like the Mexican flag, and I got them for the equivalent of about $3.  They are so soft! 

  

Every Monday, I have been searching long and hard for a Coke with my name and today I found it! The only sad part is that Alexis is a boy name here! Ha! Ha!

 This would be me attempting to play the piano and singing hymns today. Life is great with the Spirit and some hymns. 

Also, just in case you were still wondering, I still don’t have full feeling in my lip. Remember the crazy wisdom teeth surgery? Oh well, ni modo, I will have partial feeling the rest of my life!

This week was ... A WEEK OF MIRACLES. 

Hermano Oscar is practically a member! Once we ditch cigarettes, we are golden! Tuesday we were walking for mil años and not finding anyone. The light at the end of the tunnel is that he was going to go to Ward FHE and we were going to talk about repentance afterward. We show up at church and well...he didn’t. We were so bummed. He calls us and says ¨Hey are you still at the church?¨ We said, “Of course!”  He told us he was sorry for being so late, but that he would be there in about 15 minutes and he had a surprise for us!  He showed up at about 8:15 WITH HIS WIFE AND KIDS. They live about 15 minutes from here, but wow, they are so special! We talked about families and one of the counselors in the bishopric gave him a blessing to help him live the Word of Wisdom. BUT, his blessing also mentioned that lots of people including his family, would receive the gospel through him, and that he would be SEALED IN THE TEMPLE.  His wife started to cry and told us how she is so grateful that her husband has found God and she keeps asking where He is. 

Another night, we had another lesson in the chapel and we talked about families more and our Father in Heaven. His wife is opening up so much and his 10 year old son is an angel! They all want to learn more and be baptized. One morning we went to visit Hermano Oscar and we talked about our baptismal covenant and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. We were talking about what we need to feel before baptism and he gets teary up talking about mistakes he’s made and how he just wants to change and be better for his family. He wants to help his kids outside of his marriage to receive the gospel too. This is what it means to be repentant, to have this change of heart.

We went to church on Sunday and here comes Hermana Elsa (the mom who’s less active), both of her sons Oscar and Jose (the one who listened one time and then didn’t want anything) the family of Hermano Oscar, and Hermana Elsa invited her niece who also wants to learn more. All of this started by loving and finding a less active member and helping her to feel peace during a rough time. The gospel is incredible and when people are touched by it, they start to share it with everyone. Wow, this family blows my mind!!  It just felt amazing at church on Sunday. We had seven investigators come to church. AHH! 

This week my Heavenly Father taught me so much about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I realized how much I’ve truly been touched by the love of my Savior. All of my experiences and meditating this week helped me to prepare a talk for Sunday. The bishop asked my companion and I to speak. I loved it. I started out by sharing the story from President Hinckley la de “He Took My Lickin for Me”.  I asked everyone if they had been touched by the love of Jesus Christ.  When we feel just a little bit of his love, we start to have faith.  We start to believe in what He did, and we start to see that it is possible … with Him, everything is possible.  Our love for Him starts to grow and we want to repent. We want to use the sacrifice He gave us. We want to be better for Him. We want to show our love for Him and we trust Him enough to be humble and repent, and confess, or whatever we have to do. Fear doesn’t matter, talking with a bishop doesn’t matter, what others will say or think doesn’t matter because we just want to come unto Him. I told a BYU story too. In my 3rd semester, I was feeling a little hopeless. I was scared, I just wanted to do what was right and I remember one night driving to the temple in Brad’s car. I parked outside of the Provo temple and started to listen and sing “I Know that My Redeemer Lives” … then I started crying and stopped singing. I shared the lyrics of this hymn and talked about how we have made or are preparing to make covenants.  We have or will have the Holy Ghost and we have to be firm and faithful to the end, o sea, we have to allow the Lord’s love to touch our hearts our whole lives.  I used Elder Holland´s talk about the First Great Commandment (still my all time favorite talk)  and how he asks Peter if he really loves Him.  If we love the Lord .. we serve Him.  If we love Him .. He comes first. Last week Grandma Janice told me that I was finally accepting the Lord’s love. I read that and thought pridefully ¨Hey that’s not true, I always feel it!¨  The truth is, that’s not the truth.  I resist it so many times.  I put extremely high standards for myself and I’m really not very patient.  I have resisted His love so many times in my life, most thinking I wasn’t worthy of it, or that I could figure things out on my own.  My President gave me a blessing one time and in my blessing said that I needed to learn about and experience the Atonement and the Savior’s love on my mission so that I could bless my husband and kids.  IT’S SO TRUE!! 

I am finally feeling the Lord’s love.  I am finally understanding repentance.  I am seeing myself how He sees me.  My love for Him is growing more and more every day and my mission is the most incredible gift that He has given me.  I love the Lord.  If I don’t communicate anything else with y’all .. I want you to know this .. I love Him.  I love Him a whole lot and I love what He has sent me to do.  I love Him for his patience.  I love Him for what He did.  I love Him for always giving us a second chance.  I love Him for giving me this mission, and I love Him for being by my side every day.  I am just extremely grateful and happy and with Him it’s all possible.  ¨Todo lo puedo en Crist que me fortalece.¨ .. This scripture is so going on the wall in my home.  Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” .. not going to lie .. I like it better in Spanish!

I love you all to the moon and back and I hope that you are happy. Come unto Christ, forget everything else and come unto Him. Feel His love, do what He asks, and receive His love. 

Love you almost as much as He does! 

Mexico Week 25 -- Go! Go! Go, Joseph!

To all of my favorite people in the world! 

In all honesty, this week was a little rougher. We are really struggling to find people to teach and visit.  We are walking .. walking .. walking for days! I have a great story that will make you all laugh! So I end up with these big blisters, one under each ball of my foot, right? One day we’re walking and they’re really killing me. All of the sudden POP! There goes one! Pus filled sock and I’m wimpering in the street, but we’re missionaries and so we keep going! About 10 minutes later POP! There goes the other one and I begin wimpering in the street again. Ha! Ha!  All I could think was que bueno que I wasn’t a pioneer!  Seriously, I think I would have died half way!

There is a WalMart in my area .. I have never been so excited to enter a WalMart in my life!!  Seriously, it is HEAVEN!!

My area is also so beautiful. The whole area isn’t like these pictures, but really, it’s beautiful! We also found some Mariachi band members today! 

Okay, now for the good stuff. This precious señora is the mom of one of our less active members we found this week. She has Alzheimer’s and is literally my favorite. She reminds me a lot of working in the nursing homes when I was in high school! She always holds my hand and is always talking. Sometimes during lessons, she just puts her head on my shoulder. Her daughter is a member and literally loves to learn. She’s also a nurse! She took care of her dad until he died and now she’s been taking care of her mom.  She’s starting to get worse as the disease progresses and can’t go to church. She says all is good, but she just has this look sometimes like she’s just sad. It stuck with me all week and we need to really work and pray so we can find out how to help her! 

We found another less active member that also just needs a lot of help. She wants to come back to church and I honestly love working with those that have stopped going. They have testimonies, sometimes they just help to repent, or they need someone to listen, or they just need representatives of the Lord to help them out. I love it. 

The Lord always has a purpose. I have started reading the Bible and remember how the Old Testament always put me to sleep? Well now I’m kind of loving it! I have been reading about Joseph this week.  True confessions, I’ve been singing the Donny Osmond songs from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat! Ha! Ha!  It really helps my study when my brain breaks out in song part way through the scripture .. Go! Go! Go! Joseph, you know what they say! Go! Go! Go! Joseph, you’ll make it someday!

But really, there are some verses where we says to his brothers, you guys didn’t send me here (to Egypt). God sent me here, He had a purpose, you guys aren’t guilty of anything. God needed me here to interpret these dreams and prepare us for the famine. First things first, he spent two years (well probably more) in jail for something he didn’t even do. Can you imagine that type of patience? That type of long suffering? I feel like the Lord really worked on him there and helped him prepare for more of what was to come in his life. Then he’s face to face with brothers and completely forgives them, saying that they’re not guilty of anything. He looks for the hand of the Lord and eventually understood the plan. I think we should be more like that. He is my new hero! I really am going to accomplish my goal of reading the whole Bible in the mission! 

We visited another less active member. We have gone by there two or three times and they don’t receive us, or they’re not home or stuff like that. We had been walking for a long time and I just started praying.  Praying that they would open the door, praying that they would receive us. We knocked and after a long time, her son opened. Then about ten minutes later she came downstairs and was kind of mad because she had been resting and started telling us everything she didn’t like about the church. We started talking about our Heavenly Father and her whole face changed. She tells us that she felt hope like we had planted a little seed and told us when she would be home and everything. She tells us, it’s really a miracle you found me here today and even more of a miracle that we opened the door and I came downstairs. My son never answers the door, and I had no intention of getting up, but something made me get up. WOW! The Lord does work with us. 

I love you lots and you're always in my prayers!! Love you almost as much as the Lord does! 

Words of Wisdom -- From My Uncle

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor Frankl was held in a concentration camp for over three years.  During that time, his wife, mother and brother died.  That adds a lot of perspective to a quote about choosing your attitude in any given set of circumstances.

I love you being on a mission.  I think about when I was a missionary all the time.  When I first got to the mission my trainer had been out 6 weeks.  This was basically one transfer!  When new missionaries came in the next transfer, we became trainers.  It sounds crazy ... and it was crazy.  My mission president was very new, but he quickly realized a very important thing.  The missionaries who had been out over 9 months had developed a culture, and it was not a positive one.  They had become conditioned by the missionaries before them … and the ones before them … and the ones before them.  Rules had become optional.  Picking and choosing who to teach and who to visit was based upon personal opinions, and not the Spirit.  So my mission president moved the majority of these missionaries five hours north.  Only the exceptional missionaries were allowed to stay in the city.  The new missionaries were paired up with new missionaries and they influenced and supported each other in learning how to follow the Spirit.  They no longer had the influence of someone telling them what couldn’t be done.   The younger missionaries prayed with faith, demonstrated hope and exercised their faith.

The mission President did this for over six months … and amazing things started happening.  We went from teaching very little and few baptisms to a total explosion.  It was unheard of in this city.  The members started to change their opinions and dinner appointments kicked back in.  People were being baptized in every zone.  Most importantly the missionaries BELIEVED!  They believed in the work. They believed in the people and they believed they were called to SERVE and TEACH!

A common term for a new missionary is green or greenie.  Buddy I have some advice … STAY GREEN!  Stay green your entire mission.  I mean it.  I think Nephi is a great example of someone who was green.  He was young and inexperienced.  All he knew was that the Lord commanded him to do certain things, and the Lord would provide a way.  Under his leadership, his family left Jerusalem, got the plates, returned for wives, built a ship and traveled across the ocean.  None of which his older brothers thought was possible.  The biggest difference is that Nephi had faith, perspective, a good attitude, and he didn’t let others change his mind.  STAY GREEN.

Lehi shared his vision of the tree of life with his family.  Nephi went away and spent time thinking and praying and asking the Lord if it was true.  He was blessed with amazing experiences because of showing initiative and taking responsibility for his own testimony and faith.  His brothers complained, wined, and frankly didn’t try to learn if it was true or what the Lord would have them do.  When Nephi asked if they have prayed or spent time asking God about it, instead of depending on what they did or didn’t understand, they became angry and annoyed.  Nephi never let this deter him.  He knew what the Lord had asked of him and he was always willing to follow the promptings and do the right thing. 

I know you said others have doubted your feelings for Carlos.  You will meet a lot of Carlos’ on your mission and throughout your life.  Stay Green – Be Like Nephi -- and continue on the path the Lord has outlined for you.  Never lose that hope and faith in others.  Your Heavenly Father will bless you with amazing experiences.  I promise you this.  I feel the Spirit so strong when I write this.  You CAN have an amazing mission.  You never really know all of the things that can come from your actions and belief in others.  Be confident in knowing that the Lord can see the big picture.  There are times He will prompt you to help him with a piece or two of the puzzle.  You place those pieces and He will take care of the rest.  Be like Nephi.

Think back on your opportunities to teach Primary.  Being green is a lot like becoming childlike.  Not in the sense of being immature, but in the sense of being open to the Spirit and not requiring proof but moving forward on faith.  Kids rarely give up hope.  They wake up every day and love you and their friends and the world around them.  They don’t remember what frustrated them the day before.  Every single day is filled with the hope that it will be the BEST DAY EVER.  That hope and faith is what allows them to love so openly and freely.

I know how much you love a good animated movie.  Dreamworks put out a movie a few years ago called “The Prince of Egypt” and it told the story of Moses from his birth to receiving the 10 Commandments.   During most of the movie, the Israelites are slaves to the Egyptians.  They have prayed for years to be freed; and the lack of a perceived response from the Lord has caused them to question their own faith.  How can they continue on when the prayers have remained unanswered for so many years?  After they are freed by Moses and are seen marching towards the Red Sea, there is a song that starts to play …

Many nights we've prayed, with no proof anyone could hear.
In our hearts a hopeful song we barely understood.

Now we are not afraid, although we know there's much to fear.
We were moving mountains long before we knew we could.

There can be miracles when you believe.
Though hope is frail; It’s hard to kill.
Who knows what miracles you can achieve, when you believe.
Somehow you will, you will when you believe.

In this time of fear, when prayer so often proved in vain.
Hope seemed like the summer birds, too swiftly flown away.
Yet now I'm standing here, with heart so full I can't explain.
Seeking faith and speaking words I never thought I'd say.

There can be miracles when you believe.
Though hope is frail; It’s hard to kill.
Who knows what miracles you can achieve, when you believe.
Somehow you will, you will when you believe.

One of my favorite lines in this song is “we were moving mountains long before we knew we could” – They did not know they could or even recognize the Lord’s hand in their lives, but He knew.  He knew what they were capable of and He guided them every step of the way.   The miracles came in the Lord’s way and in the Lord’s own time.

I got home from my mission in 2002, so that is 12 years ago.  Here is what is so great about the lessons you learn as a missionary.  Even though I haven’t been a missionary for a long time, these lessons continue to teach me today.  Right now I serve with the Young Men.  There are plenty of people who have been YM Leaders for a lot longer than I have.  They may have lost hope in some of these young men.  Some leaders may say it’s a waste of time to do this or that.  Those who have done this calling before me have their own ideas about how things should be done in this ward.  There can be a fine line between listening to more experienced people and ignoring your feelings and promptings.  I know I was called here for a reason.  I know I am being prompted to do certain things and I know that if I listen to the Lord, great things will happen.  Each of us struggle with this very basic concept … To see people the way God sees them.  To not be influenced by the world says or thinks is cool.  To take immediate action when the Lord asks us to do something.  To believe in ourselves and our ability to receive inspiration.  To truly know that we can make a difference in the lives of others.  I know that if we put our trust in the Lord, strive daily to have hope in those around us, and seek to see others as God does … amazing things will be put in our path.  There can and will be miracles if we believe!