¡Hola mi familia y mis amigos!
My heart just swells with joy and love when I read Tiffanie's letters, and I grow in my personal testimony that God answers my prayers from this side of the world for her. Keep it up, champ, no unclean thing can stop you, and every clean thing will advance the work you are helping in.
Elder Tonks and I live in a pension that is one of those 2 houses-1 building get-ups, so there's only a thin wall that separates us. The only thing we really know about our neighbor is that he has excellent taste in music, because just about every night at 10:00pm he starts blaring Journey. We've contemplated blaring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to get a real party started, but we haven't gotten around to it yet.
Regarding the presidential elections, in order to send in a ballot from over here, is there anything we need to get done now? Like, am I registered?
Thanks for the cousin notes from the family reunion and the national park postcards. I just chuckled when I opened up the envelope and thought, "Only my dad would send postcards in an envelope."
A month or so ago, when I was still in Sindempart, I came to La Cantera, the area where I work now, on an interchange with Elder Tonks. We randomly knocked a door to offer singing them a song, and the lady, Silvia, answered and said they couldn't attend us then because they were in the middle of her daughter's birthday party, who turned 8 that day. I'm pretty sure every missionary gets a little excited when they hear the kid just turned 8. Anyways, they said we could come by another time to do it. When I got to La Cantera a couple weeks ago, I asked Elder Tonks if he had ever passed by Silvia again, which they hadn't, so we went over and she and her husband, Luis, let us in and we sang and came back later that week to teach our message about the restoration of the gospel. They're a great family, and they wanted to hear us because they were always interested in who the Mormons really are. They keep asking us back because they feel a different sort of calm that they've never experienced before whenever they listen to us. Unfortunately, they started getting into anti-Mormon internet sites between visits because they wanted to investigate more, and that just made for a fun little roadblock in their progression. Something they said to us yesterday was, "we just feel bad for you two since they forced you into coming here, following rules, and not having fun for 2 whole years." That was a wonderful opportunity to give gentle testimony of why we came. I am happy to explain that I am here for my own decision, and that you can ask any missionary in the field right now and get the same response. That said, we follow rules and use our time to help others not for oppression, rather because we know and see the difference it makes in the lives of every family who accepts our message and puts it in practice to experience it for themselves. Something I read in my studies last week that stuck out to me was about virtue. In reading Mark 5:25-34, it says Christ felt "virtue" leave from Him to heal the woman with the blood sickness as she touched the hem of his garment. Compare that with the version in Luke, and Luke 8:46 says that Christ felt "power" leave Him. Therefore, virtue is literally power. See Luke 6:19 for more. In D&C 121:45, it tells us to let virtue garnish our thoughts unceasingly, and then our confidence and power grow. As we focus on righteous, uplifting thoughts more and more over a period of time, it works like a well of power stored up inside of us that can then be used as power in healing situations. I know by experience that those healing situations are as much spiritual as they are physical. As we grow in virtue over time, it can also be felt by those around us more strongly, and even acts as a convincing power to the minds and hearts of those who listen (see Alma 31:5.) Anyways, what I wanted to say with that is that in that situation, even against filthy anti-Mormon gunk fresh in their minds, there is no other power greater that we could offer Silvia and Luis than the atoning power of Christ, which can be felt through the Spirit. They still want us to come by to share more with them.
We're friends with this one 9 year old kid, Javier, who we always see outside of his house playing in the street. He's really smart, and we've taught him to pray, and he prays every night. On Thursday, we saw him, and he told us his dad was really sad, so he went inside to tell his dad that we wanted to sing him a song to cheer him up. The dad, Manuel, came out and invited us inside, and we soon found out that his wife had just left him a couple days before with another man, leaving him behind with 6 kids under the age of 11, including a 6-month old baby. She's not coming back. As he cried before us, the scriptures in 1 Nephi 21:14-16 came to my mind. I don't have much time right now, so look it up. An incredible Spirit came into the room as he read those verses, and I knew he felt the warm embrace of the Savior in that moment. We invited his son, Javier, to offer the prayer before we left, and he did. Afterwards, Manuel was completely amazed by the sincerity and meekness of his young boy who prayed fervently for him and with the faith only a child can teach us. They came to church on Sunday and we had the primary presidency ready to greet them. I love you all!
Love, Elder Kimball
No comments:
Post a Comment