Que transita
por tus venas!!! (What’s running through your veins? Just another way I learned
to say hi.)
As always, I
never know where to start. So much happens every single week it is hard to
remember it all, but this has been a great week as they always are!! It is
crazy getting down to the last few days here and I am so ready to get to the
field, but I am working harder this week than ever before. I know I need this
time here and I want to make the best of it.
We had some
really good friends leave this week. A district that was super cool which was in
our zone left at the beginning of this week. They had one Elder in their
district who had an amazing singing voice. He was the Elder that sang the first
day I was here. He has a full ride to BYU for singing so we will miss his voice
a lot! Also, a good friend of my comp and me was Elder Motts. We played
basketball with him a lot!! He is like 6´10 or something and was another awesome
guy who we had to say goodbye to. In a week we will say goodbye to all the
other awesome people we have met here.
Last Friday
or Saturday, now I can’t remember, we taught Brian. Brian is an Elder in our
district and we have to teach each other every day. We take on the name of a
friend or someone that we know to be an investigator and it helps us learn what
it is like to be in their shoes. So we taught him about the restoration, I
believe, and it was a good lesson. But afterwards he asked if he could talk to
us. During the previous lesson with him he had had a lot of questions so we
spent the time answering those and many of them were about la palabra de
sabaduria (Word of Wisdom). So when he wanted to talk to us we were like, “okay”.
He told us that in our last lesson you weren’t just teaching “Brian”, but you
were teaching me. He said in the past he has had his struggles, and that it was
the first time ever in his life he truly understood why he needed to obey the
word of wisdom. He has been living it, but it has just been hard for him. He
said that even though it was in Spanish it was crystal clear to him!! That hit
us so hard. You never know when you can truly bless the life of someone else. The
Lord was truly in that lesson. It was an amazing testimony builder.
Our teacher
also asked us to tutor two Elders in Spanish because they are struggling. That
was a shock because I definitely do not feel qualified to teach anyone Spanish,
but it has been going well. I think it was for me also, because I have learned
a lot as I have been teaching!
Sunday, as
always, was a day full of the Spirit. The Spirit was so strong in our testimony
meeting. Before one of our devotionals, an Hermana sang the hymn, Abide With Me
Tis Eventide in Spanish with an amazing piano accompaniment. Her voice was just
so clear and perfect for it. I truly felt the Spirit so strong. It was the most
amazing hymn I have ever heard!! I love how much music can bring the Spirit into
our lives.
The other day
my companion found a perfect scripture for me during personal study. He said it
is perfect for soldiers. It is in Alma 60:36 it reads: 36 Behold, I am Moroni, your chief captain.
I seek not for power, but to pull it down. I seek not for
honor of the world, but for the glory of my God, and the freedom and welfare of
my country. And thus I close mine epistle.
I love that!!
I serve my God now and will one day serve my country to bring freedom to people
in temporal and spiritual things and for the glory of my God.
By far the
highlight of this week was last night, Tuesday night. We had a devotional and
it was a talk given by Elder Holland a year ago at the Provo MTC. It was
seriously another one of the best talks I have ever heard. He once again really
hit the point home that we have to convert ourselves before we can convert
others. The missionary should be fully converted and then he will have the
power of God. It is unacceptable, and shouldn’t happen, for a return missionary
to fall away. For someone who taught gospel truths to others should not do what
they taught. A quote he had that I really liked was (and he said it in a joking
way at first, but he truly and really meant it) "I command you to
come home with at least one convert, and that better be YOU!!"
His words were so powerful when he said it and right afterward he was super
emotional and bore testimony about how his 24 months in the field changed the
next 50 years of his life. His next 50 years had everything to do with his
mission. It was so powerful to hear his testimony.
Another part
of his talk I really liked was when he was talking about the conversion of Alma
the younger in Mosiah 27. When the angel visited Alma and the sons of Mosiah he
spoke "as it were with a
voice of thunder, which caused the earth to shake upon which they stood; and that
lead to the conversion of Alma and the sons.”
And then
Elder Holland related missionaries to that. He talked about teaching with power
and authority and with the spirit and he said that he had a theory:
"People
can have earthquakes exactly where they stand, and you can cause that!"
I love that. It shows what power we can have as missionaries if we are obedient and have the Spirit with us.
One last
quick story, so after that talk we went back to our classrooms and had a
discussion as a district and some Hermanas joined us because their district had
already left. Two of the Hermanas had amazing stories. One was a convert to the
church at age 15 and she told us the story of the hardships she had. Her whole
family is anti-Mormon and atheist. She talked about how she was alone and
couldn't get to church and just wanted to feel that she was loved by someone. She
told us the time she was truly converted was when she was reading the Book of Mormon
to disprove it and when she reached the promise in Moroni she decided, “what
the heck, I will pray to see if it was true” and as she prayed she was overcome
by the Spirit and knew that this church was true and that the gospel of Jesus Christ
was true without a shadow of a doubt. The other Hermana was inactive her whole
life and basically not a member. She said she had had many struggles, but when
she was at BYU Hawaii she was surfing one morning and her dad had called her
and they talked and he told her she needed to get her life in order and break
up with her boyfriend and serve the Lord. Then at the bookstore there at BYU
Hawaii she was looking at a Preach my Gospel and a return missionary came up to
her and said “that’s a good book.” And then he told her to serve a mission.
Their testimonies were just amazing and neither of them have support from their families while they are on their
missions. It was a very spiritual day.
Well that’s
all from Mexico!! I should be able to write next week on Tuesday before I
leave! I hope all is well!!
Elder Clark
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