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| Mexico Merida LDS Temple |
Happy New Year everyone! How great is it that we all get to start life over with new goals and a new year? A 2016 of being a missionary the whole year! I sure am excited for this year to come!
This week was a good week. Remember all the times I have said we found someone that is ready to hear the gospel, but does not live in our área? Well, finally we got our karma back! Two missionaries from another área met two people and placed baptism dates and live in our área!! We still have not met them yet but hey, it is exciting. This week we placed 6 more baptism dates. We have 9 dates right now, 4 have already fallen and we are working with them to get back on track. But we have 8 set in stone right now. We are hoping to baptize Joana the 16th, Jhonny the 23rd, and 6 others the 30th. It is kinda funny cause we always say we are preparing a special baptism service just for the person… if we have 6 on the 30th it will be legendary and they will all wonder why we said it was just for them… but hey the more the merrier right!? This week we had 44 lessons, we are trying to have 55 in one week!
So remember the drunk guy I talked about a few weeks ago who has literally every problem in the world and told me he saw the face of Jesus in my eyes and begged me not to leave him because of what he was feeling? Well, this week we went and visited him. It was the first time we have ever gone when he was not drunk. He was 3 days sober in this moment, and honestly it made me SO happy to see how much happier he was and how different of a person he was. He has a wife, who we have failed to focus much on. But we taught Antonio and Veronica, and placed 2 baptisms dates for the 30th of January. When we went two days later, Antonio was completely drunk again. He was like, so are we gonna pray!? And we told him no, and got really serious with him. We told him he can not keep playing with God like this. And we told him honestly that we will always help him but might shift our focus to his wife who is completely ready to change her life. We do not understand why she is with him. We told him we want them to grow together, but more than likely if he doesn't stop drinking or changing, he will watch his wife get baptized when he can not. He took it hard and stormed out, reminded me of the Book of Mormon when it says the wicked take the truth to be hard. He is my project though. I have so much love for him.
Lol, a funny story. We met two future investigators this week. And after we taught them for a while a little kid asked me if I could help him for his primer communion. I immediately said yes.. without knowing what it meant in English, because 99 percent of the time we can help with anything. After my comp told me that I told him we could help him with his first confirmation in the catholic church… needless to say we started laughing SO HARD!! We were just like… nimodos. A phrase in Yucatan that basically means oh well! Lol Sometimes I can be really silly.
This Friday night our plans got a little ruined and we were praying about where we needed to go. We felt we needed to visit the Prieto family, but they live literally forever away. We followed the prompting and went, turns out they were praying for us to come, and had their nephew their from Veracruz. We taught him the gospel and everything went great. He accepted baptism for 30 of January!! His name is Aurellio, he is 22, and has had a crazy past. Has a kid and a girlfriend in Veracruz that might come out here too… but we will see what happens! He did not go to church this week because the member he lives with had him work that day… it is ironic a member was the reason our investigator did not go to church.
Nayeli yesterday accepted a date for baptism! She is 19, and married to an inactive. It was the most weird lesson to have a date placed, all we did was talk about Book of Mormon and read the introduction. It was so crazy though, the spirit was so strong, and even though we did not talk about what baptism at all is, we asked and she accepted! Her and her husband want to be sealed in the temple.
This week was a little rough. We were going to baptize Joana this week, the 9th, because we have permission from our Mission President to baptize her even though she doesn't live within this área. But our bishop wont allow it because she does not live here… so it is rough with that. We are praying really hard that is can work out a little further in the future. Our bishop has been really hard for us to be honest. Joana wants to have a calling and everything in this Ward. Who knows.
This Friday, my comp and I were standing outside a house yelling Buenas Tardes as loud as we could for them to hear us (it is the way of knocking here) and I saw a bee on my companions shoe, and had a feeling I should tell him about it and push it away, but I failed to follow the feeling.. 1 minute later my companion got stung by the bee. Needless to say I was laughing super hard but also felt so bad that I did not stop it from happening, he still does not know that I saw it before!! SHH!!
So this past week I was once again the most full I had ever been in my life. Usually even when I am super full I still have the ability to eat the food in front of me. But on Tuesday, the hermana made us both a 6 egg omelet, filled with meat, peppers, tomato, and every thing you can think of. Also 2 bowls of beans with pork. Now let me tell ya, eggs literally fill you so much… I have honestly found a lot of strength through prayer in physical things lol.
So a funny tradition here in the Yucatan on New Years Eve. They basically take a scare crow and stuff it with Fireworks, put gasoline on it and set it on fire… all night long in every Street. So we saw a couple earlier in the night and they are DANGEROUS! And one right outside out house at night that woke us up, it was hard to sleep that night, but awesome to watch honestly.
My mom sent a ton of little toys to give out to kids here and lets just say seeing the smile on their face when we give them a little gift is so worth it all. I love the pure happiness I feel here.
A new missionary who just got here from Utah a couple weeks ago told me this week that he read everything on my blog and knows exactly who I am and all my experiences. It was really awkward but cool I guess. I mean I honestly have never seen my own blog and forget people actually exist outside this little bubble of life, but shout out to my mom for having a killer blog to help share my experiences and the gospel!!
Pics. A member had the cutest puppy so obviously we had to take a picture. And last Monday we had a family home evening and that is more special of a lesson so we played the ping pong my mom sent me as our activity portion. It was great!
So on January 1st I was thinking a lot about how all of 2016 I will be here and on a mission, and all of the goals I want to achieve as a missionary. I prayed to God to answer a question for me, what can I do better as a missionary? I then had the best personal study session of my mission, crying and filled with the spirit the whole time. I then came upon this scripture in Luke 9: 24 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. It totally hit me right then and there. So many people think I am crazy to be here. They think that I am losing 2 years of my life to be here, but in fact I am saving my life for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So I wanna ask you all a question, what are you doing to lose your life for Christ? With this knowledge, everything hit me about my potential here as a missionary in this year 2016. It doesn't matter the numbers, what matters is I do all I can with ALL my heart. And my promise to the Lord this year, is I will lose my life for him more than ever.
I also encountered this verse, Doctrine & Covenants 101: 9 Verily I say unto you, notwithstanding their sins, my bowels are filled with compassion towards them. I will not utterly cast them off; and in the day of wrath I will remember mercy. Wow did this hit me. Yes cried from the influence of the spirit as I read this and pondered about it. How often in life are we just so mad at someone for something they have done to us, for THEIR sins, and then we expect the Lord to forgive us for ours? We must fill ourselves with love for every single person around us, no matter what their sins are. We never should cast someone off just for their sins, because we have are own sins too. Now the term cast them off does not always mean to literally kick them out of our lives, sometimes we just kick them out of our hearts. When we fill ourselves with compassion towards others, we allow the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ to work in our lives and in our relationships. I invite you all to think of those who have hurt you, and fill yourselves with compassion towards them, show mercy, and show love.
One more thing in the week of what Elder Plowman learned. Looking out through a window, not just a mirror, helps us see the infinite potential God has for you. This hit me so hard. A lot of times I think we find ourselves only looking in a mirror, which I would consider a little self centered. But when we look OUTWARD, and look to what is outside the window of the room of our own wants and desires, we will find ourselves looking at what God has in store of us. If we only look in a mirror, we will only see ourselves, if we look out a window, we see what God has for us. In what way can you make sure you are looking through a window in 2016?
So I know I talked a lot about all these things, but I sure hope it helps you all. Know I love you all so much. Honestly nothing makes me happier than serving the Lord. I have a trust in Him that is beyond all things. Because He suffered below all things, He is in the perfect place to carry us on His shoulders.
Elder Plowman
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