"When the Savior stretches out His hands, those He touches are uplifted and become greater, stronger, and better people as a result. If we are His hands, should we not do the same?" ~Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Goooooood morning mis amados amigos! What a crazy, stressful, wonderful, amazing week. Complete with several work visits, a trip to the temple, and 2 baptisms! There are no words to express how happy we are.
We were very pleased on Friday to have the opportunity to go the the Temple as a district. One of the Elders from our zone had a convert that was going through to receive her endowment, so we were all able to go (without giving up our PDay). I love having ex-assistants in the zone. Tee hee. :) It was a wonderful experience. I was even able to buy slippers that aren't in men sizes to use, because they randomly had extra women's pairs from the states! You have no idea how happy that made me.
My favorite day of this week, and perhaps of my entire mission, was Saturday. We had an absolutely amazing baptism as a zone. Our "Noche Blanca" was complete with missionaries dressed like angels all in white, choirs, visitors from the Mission Presidency, and about 300 people to support our new converts. We were a little stressed running around for clothing... a few investigators showed up late... But by the end of the night my face literally hurt from smiling so much. And crying a little bit. Erika, who has waited 10 years to get baptized, cried as she finally entered the baptismal font. Jorge was beaming as his cousin dunked him in the cold water. It was an interesting comparison, because Jorge is actually my first investigator that we taught from start to finish without any other history from other missionaries. And we had Erika that had hundreds of people touch her life with the gospel from here to Trujillo. What an amazing experience to see how the gospel makes it's way to the children of God. I went home pondering the stories of the Book of Mormon, and thought of the lines of people waiting to enter the waters of Mormon. Well, this evening we literally had a line leading to the baptismal font. What an amazing experience.
Today I'm feeling a little heavy of heart. It is officially transfer Pday again. Oh how I dread transfer Pdays. A very very dear friend of mine will be going home to Mexico tomorrow morning. And I've got this sick feeling in my stomach that I'll be leaving San Carlos in the morning as well. If you can all pray me to stay here a few more weeks, it would be super cool. I don't think I'm quite ready to leave yet.
I love you all. Keep sharing the gospel, like I know you all do so well! The Lord needs us all working. And let me tell you, the reward is more than worth the effort.
Isn't there a song that says that? With a happy little high note? I feel like it's an 80s song. How sad that I can't convey the tune to you all to help you recognize it as well.
But I detect that you all have been saying your prayers. I must thank you all a million times over! This week our leaders so mercifully told us that if Jorge went to church this week, he could get baptized on the 22nd of this month. And you know what? He went to church this week! So he'll be getting baptized on Saturday! Do you have any idea how we squealed as we received that phone call? We are oh so very happy.
Also, the woman that waited to get married for 10 years got married on Friday. She'll be getting baptized on the 22nd as well.
The 22nd is going to be super awesome because we're having a mass baptism as a zone. Have I already told you that? I don't quite remember. But we're preparing a choir (boy has that been an interesting experience), we're going to have some awesome talks, and we're all going to show up in white, like angels. I can't wait to send you all pictures next week.
This week we started going to the gym with the Elders. Haha! I just have to laugh thinking about it. It's been such a long time since I've touched a gym... We walked like duckies all week long. I'm not sure if it was more sad or funny. But we'll see if we can work up the stamina to go again this week.
This week we also had a really cool zone conference with President Erickson. We talked more about faith. He shared an interesting scripture. We all know that fear is the opposite of faith, no? Well he shared a story of Oliver Cowderey as he wanted to help Joseph translate the plates.
DyC 9:11 explains: Behold, it was expedient when you commenced; but you feared, and the time is past, and it is not expedient now.
Have you ever thought about the opportunities or blessings you might have lost due to fear? Well, the Lord teaches us to fear not. He knows exactly what He's doing. We just need to have faith in Him.
Good morning, my beloved friends and family. I've been contemplating a lot about what I want to share with you all today. It's been a rough week. I think I've mentioned this before, but they say that the mission is a sort of reflection of your life. Well, I'm coming up on 8 months now. I fear that that means that I'm at the head of my mid-life crisis. Or at least it would appear so with how stressed out I am.
I'm not going to tell you a lot about the actual experiences we've had. I can tell you that yesterday we lost our baptismal date with Jorge because he wasn't able to go to church. That was pretty devastating for us. We love him so much and we were so excited to help him get baptized this month. We'll have to wait till the first week of March now.
We've been reading Doctrine and Covenants as a ward council to invite the spirit into our meetings. This week we read from DyC 6. Have any of you read that section before? If you haven't, you need to. It's a good one. I love all of it, but the last few verses really got me this week.
34 Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if you are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.
Here the Lord is talking to Oliver Cowdery. I love that the Savior refers to us as his 'little flock' or in Spanish, his rebañito. He is our Good Shepherd. How is it that our Shepherd directs us to overcome fear? By doing good. Not by crying. Not by avoiding situations. Not by eating your weight in your favorite flavor of Ben and Jerry's. But by doing good. We are always going to be faced with opposition. And if we let this opposition get the best of us, we just might get lost for a little while. How do you fight the opposition? We build ourselves upon the Rock. We construct our solid foundation. We trust in the Lord and abide by His commandments, because He knows what we need and why. As we follow this council we find that neither earth nor hell can overtake us. THEY CANNOT PREVAIL. Remember that when you're feeling like you just can't fight the fight today.
36 Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.
37 Behold the wounds which pierced my side, and also the prints of the nails in my hands and feet; be faithful, keep my commandments, and ye shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.
The Lord, as our Good Shepherd, is inviting us to follow Him. He will never force us from behind. But He is waiting for us. And when we're lost, well gosh darnit He'll go out and find us. But why would we want to face the danger of leaving the flock?
I don't want any of you to freak out or take pity on me. I don't want any extra emails trying to console me. I'm alright. But I want you to all understand that the mission is hard. It's not a bunch of gumdrops and rainbows every day. I love you all very very much and I think of you when time permits. Be strong and be happy. And go find a lost sheep.
What an interesting week, I dare say. I'm not sure I have a whole lot to tell you all though. I feel like all of the members give you updates way before Monday hits! :P
Let's see. We lost a few days of work this week because my poor companion has been having a hard time adjusting to the food. We got to go see a specialist in a really nice part of Central Lima though. So that was pretty cool. We got to see some fancy castley like buildings and go to a really really really nice Plaza for lunch.
On Wednesday night we had a fun ward activity. We all put on a circus! And everyone danced and played crazy games and had all sorts of fun. (Don't worry, we didn't dance much more than a few finger wiggles since we're missionaries and all). It was awesome because we had a ton of inactives and references there.
Let's see... On Sunday we got our burn on with the ward council. We pulled out Jacob 1:19 on them. If you're ever feeling a little like you don't have to actually do anything to press forward the work of the Lord, just remember that the blood of those around you is on your garments! It's just a little motivating for me to think that the salvation of these souls is literally on my shoulders. And the shoulders of everyone here in the San Carlos ward. We'll see if it worked if we have references in church next week. Maybe fear is one of the best motivators. Hmmmm.
Jorge had to take a trip to see his dad in Chicalayo this week, so we haven't seen him since Monday. We've been super worried about him since we know that Satan is super sneaky. We just ask for more and more prayers! His baptismal date is for the 22nd of this month, so we need 19 more days of super extra protection prayers por favor.
We also had a miracle of sorts land on our laps yesterday. After church, a woman that has been attending the ward for 10 years but couldn't get baptized (because her husband didn't want to get married) explained that her husband wants to get married this week and she's ready for the water! It was a kind of "did I just hear you right?" kind of moment. So she'll be baptized as soon as we get her papers all worked out to get her married.
Oh! And this week we had interviews with President. He left me thinking about something interesting. I started my first few steps of a new journey this week: Coming to Know Christ. I'm starting with Doctrine and Covenants 93:1, where there are five steps to knowing Christ. It's a kind of personal experience, and I'm not sure how much of my findings I should divulge, but I invite you all to take a similar journey. I'm pretty excited.
My name's Cassie. You can call me Hermana Schroader for now. I'm currently serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Lima Peru!