Hermana
Lighten has been so sick. So I had time to read like 5 chapters of the
Book of Mormon instead of one! It was actually a righteous party. Also! I
had time to sew a dress. BECAUSE the Elders investigator, Valentina got
baptized, and she doesn't have many dresses or anything. So in our piso
we had this super cute black dress that was a large and Valentina is
teeny tiny. So I sewed
It up into a small with some
thread I found in the piso. And it actual looked so good. I'm so proud
of myself, you taught me well ,mother. I'm considering taking up
sewing. And then I put it on and took pictures because I was just so
pumped. And yeah...that is what I got to do on my 8 month mark.
And
then the rest of the week just got so good. We had an incredible lesson
with Alma, I'm pretty sure I wrote about contacting her last week. But
allow me to expound a little bit. I read Elder Uchtdorf's talk this week
about "returning to our heavenly home" and I was so intrigued with the
idea that we are all here on earth with the purpose to return home.
Right after I was reading in Preach my Gospel about the light of Christ.
Every single person in Spain has been given the light of Christ,
therefore every single person has that inward compass that is trying to
guide them home. It is more evident in some than others, but I feel so
privileged to help the people remember their eternal identity and spark
that interest in them where they want to return home. Even though we
have all passed through the veil, we have the Holy Ghost slowly bringing
things to our remembrance, like the reality of our Premortal life. When
we remember God, we remember that He knows us and that we knew Him
before.
We were in a cita with Alma who has been angry at God for quite
some time now. She was born with an infirmity and she is very upset, yet
she still believes in God. We taught her about our Pre-existence which
she agreed just made sense to her. We taught her about our purpose here
on earth and how through the fall, things became imperfect. We taught
her about our loving Savior who has suffered everything that she had,
and who has His arm outstretched to her to pull her up. She would become
so accepting of what we were saying, even smiling, and then Satan would
remind her of her upset feelings she had toward God. We just
testified to her of how loving God is and how He is All Mighty and All
Knowing. We asked her to pray to be able to feel God's love.
So she did. And while she prayed, I prayed, and my companion prayed. We
prayed that she would be able to feel something. She did. She voiced in
her prayer, "Father, I miss you." And just then, through the
incredible opportunity we have to talk with our Father, she felt the
desire to return home. Through her light of Christ, she felt the desire
to know God again. The spirit spoke to her spirit and she felt God's
love. And through that experience I felt God's love also.
AND
THEN something else incredible happened. We were doing our weekly
planning and we had to cut it in half because we had two citas
inbetween. So we were planning and it was going all right, but we kind
of hit a wall and weren't sure what to do with some investigators. We
decided to pray about it and then leave to go to our citas. The citas we
had just so happened to be with the two investigators that we were
having trouble with.
[We
went to our cita with Paco who we are teaching and his girlfriend
Beatriz who is a menos activa. . We asked how the papers for her divorce were
coming and they said they would get them next month! And they're so
excited and I am too! This is seriously a miracle because we have been
praying so hard for those papers to come so that they can get married
and he can be baptized]
But
another miacle is that Paco, (our investigator) started talking about
how excited he was to finally be able to be baptized. He was able to go
to a convert baptism on Saturday and he was so excited to see how he
would get baptized. He pushed his way to the front ao that he made sure
to see and then requested that a bigger man baptized him that could hold
his weight 😂This was surely an answer to our prayers just to know that
he still was thinking about baptism and that he is so excited to be
baptized. The other investigator, we weren't sure if she was actually
interested in our messages. She would listen, and pray, and read, but
still wasn't progressing so much, and we knew it but we just weren't
sure why we felt like she was missing something. So we went to her cita
and she was able to express to us some of her feelings and even the
spirit told us so evidently that she needed more learning, that she
quite hadn't understood everything the first time missionaries taught
her so we are gonna go over some things again. I was completely
satisfied with that answer and am pumped for Pilar.
So
what I, Hermana Rust, am trying to say is that GOD LOVES US SO MUCH.
And he doesn't withhold blessings from us. And that the best thing about
being a missionary is that you see how much Heavenly Father loves your
investigators, and in turn, you feel how much he loves YOU! And that i
think so often we dont see prayer as the fabulous thing that it is.
Feeling stressed? Pray. Feeling happy? Pray. Feeling unloved? PRAY. When
you pray, you will always always always feel God's love and that is a
promise. We have the opportunity to pray always to a supreme being, all
powerful and all loving. That's something that shouldn't be taken
lightly. That's INCREDIBLE. My mind is seriously blown.
I
just wanna take some time and talk more about my favorite people, Paco
and Beatriz. I have never met two people who are so KIND. They invite us
over to eat and Paco knows that I love Aquarius so he goes and buys
Aquarius just for me. And he knows that I love anchovie flavored olives
so every time we go over there they give me a jar of olives. The last
time we went to eat, Beatriz (from El Salvador) made Papusas! Do you
remember that so Salvador restaurant we would go to with Natalie in
Provo and we always got those little pancake things with cheese and meat
and beans? And they're called papusas? Well she made them and it made
me sooo happy! She even had that jar of pickled vegetable stuff that
they would put on the table and you'd put on top. Ah it was so good. And
then they always give us all the left over food and offer to drive us
home. They just love us so much and I just love them so much. Beatriz
always tells us that we are like her daughter's and we just feel so
loved in their home.
ALSO
THANKSGIVING. Like I said, our Ecuadorian district leader took it upon
himself to make us a turkey as a token of gratitude. And it was actually
really good! It had stuffing inside that was tasty. And he made mashed
potatoes and we went around the table and said what we were grateful
for. It felt like we were in the States :')
In
other news, this week is transfer week! I am staying here in Almeria,
Hermana Lighten se va a Cartagena, and I'll be getting a new new new
companion straight out of the MTC. I'm so excited! We got a new bishop
yesterday and we went to ward council and I am so pumped because he is
gonna be straight fire. He is sharp as a knife and the nicest guy and he
basically just told everyone that ward council is going to be focused
on the obra misional heeeeyyyyyy. Three cheers for Bishop Lopez
🙆♀️🙆♀️🙆♀️
Also the
new Light the World video is incredible. I love love love the solid 30
seconds it shows where Christ is physically lifting people up. When see
that it makes me all shivery and happy. I don't know about you all, but
I have definitely felt Christ lifting me up like that. And what a
beautiful opportunity we have this season to lift others.
This was the longest emails and I don't think I have covered everything but I'll add some pics.
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