04.18.11

Well, what is up? How is everyone doing? I hope that everyone is doing good in the land of the free and home of the brave. This last week was really challenging. The family who was going to get married lied to us. They didn't show up for their wedding. They say one thing and do another. It's pretty frustrating/sad because we just want to help them. But if they don't want to live the Gospel, we can't make them. The daughter was baptized last week but didn't get confirmed. We went to their house in the morning to go to church together so that we could go to church together and they just weren't home. They said they'd be home. As Forrest Gump says, "That's all I have to say about that." This week was definitely not the best week ever. I met 2 foreigners in Honduras. One was from Belen. And the other one was from Russia. Weird huh? The Russian guy was waiting in line at a grocery store in front of us. He glanced back at us and saw our name tag and tried to pronounce my name. He spoke spanish perfectly. And English. But he talked to me in spanish and asked what church we represent. I told him what the name of the church was and he said it's a sect. "All churches that aren't the Catholic church are sects." He said. And I said, no it's a religion. It's a church. And he said all sects are from the devil. And we represent a sect. He told me I should probably wash my shirt and iron it. And he asked me what I do for the people. I told him we look for opportunities to serve the people here and preach them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He's like, "I build bridges. That's how I help the people." And I told him that's neat and then said goodbye and that it was nice meeting him because he was getting checked out and he said some stuff to me in Russian and did a weird sign and called me the devil in spanish and said that he hopes that I find God one day. There were a lot of people there watching it and all I did was smile and laugh instead of argue back with him. Because I really felt an unpleasant spirit as he talked. The guy was brilliant. He was huge too. About six foot 6 and I'd say 270 pounds. Pure muscle. So that was an "interesting" experience. I'll have to admit that it really bothered me right after it was over. But after I got a chance to calm myself down and think it over, I got thinking about how it's necessary that there is an opposition in all things. And that anyone can say or think what he/she wants about the church because of their free agency, but we don't have to believe them. Like in Lehi's vision, the successful travelers resisted all distractions to get to the fruit of the tree of life. We worked very hard and tried to find a lot of new people, but it was one of those weeks where people just didn't receive us. I know that Jesus Christ's love for us isn't affected by our decisions. So my companion and I were really striving to not get discouraged and to keep loving the people. I read something I really liked in my personal study last week, "Faith and hope are not products of circumstance." I know that we can chose faith instead of fear or worry in any circumstance we find ourselves in. And it can be a habit we can develop too. My son is doing much better. He is getting used to things and really liking the mission. He has a really good strength. He is really good at getting people's trust and talking to them so that they can understand whatever he would like to teach them. I just know that true happiness is found in looking outward instead of inward. Looking out to the needs of others. Looking out to their challenges. Looking out to help them be happy. I know if we focus on others' happiness, we too will be happy. I am feeling a lot of things now that my time is going down. Nervous, anxious, happy, sad, excited, worried, glad. There's just a lot of things I'm feeling. I'm grateful for these 2 years I had to work through and grow. Of course they haven't been the 2 easiest years of my life. But I don't think anything worthwhile is easy. I think that if we really want to have a good, happy life, we have to work at it. Keeping the commandments willingly and gladly is the key to happiness. But that's not easy all the time. It's obviously a lot easier to not keep the commandments. Blessings are forfeited and growth is lost when we choose not to keep the commandments. Why does God give us commandments? For OUR own bennefit. And if we follow what He asks of us, we receive peace of mind and strength. But we aren't alone here! We have prayer, scriptures, words of living prophets, the Holy Ghost, the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The odds are on our side if we choose the right.