Hola mis queridos hermanos y hermanas. I can’t believe it’s already been a week since I wrote you guys last. Blows my mind every time. This week was good I guess so here we go.
Whoops
I was sending a voice message to someone we’re teaching while leaning back in my rolly chair. I leaned back too far. See picture below. It was kinda funny though to hear the voice recording back where I’m talking and then suddenly crash.
Nueva York
Since being here I have talked to a lot of people who say that they have been to Nueva York (New York), that they would like to go, or they ask me what it’s like assuming that I’m from there. I’ve never really understood it but have just kind of ignored it. Well this week I solved the mystery. Everybody here thinks that New York is the same as the U.S. Like they think that New York is the U.S. and that every white person is from New York. I found out because in another lesson they asked me what life is like in New York and I was like “what the heck I’m not from Nueva York” and they were confused and then my companion helped out and we were able to all come to the understanding that Nueva York is part of the U.S.. Anyways I just thought that was kinda funny!
29 and 45
We were in a lesson with some kids and they asked how old we were and were shocked when we told them that we are 18 and 19. Apparently they thought I was 29 and that Elder Lugo was 45. Since that lesson, they have been super rowdy and haven’t shown us a lot of respect haha so that was a mistake.
Restoration movie miracle
A little while ago we had the idea to watch the movie about Joseph Smith and the restoration, so this week we scheduled a time to set it up with a projector and stuff at the church with a bunch of members and people we’re teaching. At 6:30p.m. it was supposed to start. Well, we couldn’t find the projector or the laptop. Thankfully everybody showed up an hour late anyways haha. Eventually we found the projector and got it working, but the big problem ended up being the little computer that we were trying to play the movie from. The laptop was struggling pretty hardcore, and after only 20 minutes we were finally able to get the movie pulled up on youtube. We tried connecting to our phone hotspot instead of the church wifi, but even then, it wouldn’t play and had to buffer really hard. At this point, it was 7:45 and everybody was sitting in the room waiting. We needed a miracle big time. Me and Elder Lugo went into the other room and said a prayer that the Lord would get the computer working and just sustain it long enough to get through the movie. But the odds weren’t looking good because it wasn’t even playing. We went back, and miraculously, it was starting to play. But then we realized that we didn’t have any audio. Whoops. We ran frantically around the chapel looking for some kind of speaker and found this giant bluetooth speaker. Super lucky. But then we couldn’t connect it to the computer because it was stuck playing the movie haha and we couldn’t stop it. I said another prayer for help and had instant revelation. We hooked the bluetooth speaker up to a members phone and while the computer/projector was playing the movie, we pulled up the movie on the phone and synched up the audio so that it would match with the computer. Bam.
It was super nuts and really stressful. Every once in a while the computer would freeze and we would have to pause the phone to keep it in sync, so it wasn’t perfect, but it was a total miracle that it worked out. Long story short, the night ended up being a huge success and I am so thankful that the Lord put it all together so that we could watch the movie and feel the spirit.
Life with the Lord is like that. He will help us out, but he wants us to do everything within our power first, like it says in D&C 123:17.
“Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.”
I definitely felt that with the movie. We did absolutely everything we could, and He came around to help with the rest. It was great.
Bautismos de Jeremy y Johan
Our good friends Johan and Jeremy got baptized this week. Honestly the whole thing was super stressful and I’m relieved it’s over haha.
The day of the baptism we went over to the church early to fill up the font, but there was a storm outside and the Navarrete power/plumbing system is already pretty sketchy. So the power and the water kept going out while we were trying to fill it. And the water that was able to fill the font kept draining out because of a leak. To sum it up, it was like 4 hours of frantically trying to get water in the font from any source we could. We got two hoses and were able to put them through the windows to fill up the font, but consequently, the water was green. Haha. But it still works I guess.
The baptism was good but yea it was super hectic. We had planned to start it at 3 but because of the water situation we didn’t get it rolling until like 3:45 so everybody was just waiting in awkward silence for us to finish. And then the bishop couldn’t read the print on the program we made because it was too small haha so he went into the other room and spent like 15 minutes deciphering it. It was all just really crazy but it was still good. It was kinda funny though because we have another baptism for a young lady we’re teaching on the 25th, and the young women presidency was real concerned after seeing the baptism with the green water haha and they kinda drilled us about that but we’re gonna be more prepared next time. But all in all, it was so good to see Johan and Jeremy get baptized. And yesterday they got confirmed with the Holy Ghost and ordained to the priesthood. And personally, I have worked my tail off to help these guys feel the joy of the gospel. Even after their baptism I’m praying really hard that they will stay on the path.
La Vida en Navarrete
Navarrete is pretty good. I haven’t given as much info as I should have so here’s a bit more info.
It’s a pretty poor area, but our apartment is pretty nice. It depends on where you’re at though. Some parts are pretty nice in Navarrete. Our apartment is on the second floor of a hair salon. Aside from the mosquitos that attack us day and night, it’s pretty good. In the town of Navarrete there are 3 wards and two church buildings which is cool. We are in Navarrete 2. We live outside of our area too so it’s a bit of a walk every day but it isn’t bad. Navarrete is also a stake, so our church building is really big. Every week there’s probably around 100 people that come per ward. And we have had lots of investigators come to church. Last week when they moved it to 10 o’clock instead of 8 for the stake conference we had 15 investigators come but didn’t even have time to count them all. During the week we talked with more people who were there but we just didn’t see them. So there’s a lot of stuff going on here. But yea Navarrete is good. A lot of drunk people, stray dogs, loud music, and it’s super hot. But I am surviving.
Living Prophets
This week during lunch I watched a 20 minute video about President Nelson and his first three years as president of the church. There were a couple spots where I just started sobbing. The spirit was super strong. I don’t understand how any intelligent person can’t see the divinity of his prophetic mantle. He’s really a prophet. Here’s the link if you all want to watch the video as well.
https://m.facebook.com/story.
Pensamiento Espiritual
I’ve had a lot of epiphanies as a missionary haha. One of them that’s been hitting me super hard lately is how obvious it is that God exists and that Jesus is the Christ.
I’ve talked to a ton of people before and during my mission. I remember doing summer sales and being shocked that everyone believed in Jesus. Like I kinda just thought it was a Utah thing. But everyone believes in Him. And in St. Louis, basically everyone believes in God. And here in the DR, everyone believes in God. A phrase everyone says when you ask them how they’re doing is “bien gracias a dios” (good thanks to God). It just blows my mind I don’t know why. Belief in a supreme being is just so much more universal than I thought it was.
Also I remember in school teachers teaching us about the millions of little things that sustain life every day and how even if one little thing faltered we’d all just die. I thought that was really interesting. And then there’s people that think that the world just exploded into existence one day. Thank goodness all those little things just happened to show up. I don’t know if you get what I’m saying but yea.
Anyways, point is, the more of the world I see, the more I’m convinced that there is a supreme being behind it all. President Russell M. Nelson actually said a couple years ago in a talk about how it was his study of the human body that he became so convinced that God existed.
Speaking of which, a couple of months ago I saw this video and thought it was great. It’s not church produced or anything but it’s still really good. Here’s the facebook link.
https://www.facebook.com/
And honestly something else that really holds my testimony together is the fact that we’re all going to die. There is just no logic whatsoever in the idea that this life is all there is. It just doesn’t make sense. I don’t know how to explain it, but I really know that life continues after this.
And my testimony of Jesus Christ has gotten so strong. I know I’m only 19 years old, but I’ve heard about and seen firsthand some honestly pretty disturbing things out here. I don’t like to mention them in my weekly’s haha, but it makes me feel totally sick inside. Then the question comes of how do we fix it? How do we become clean again? And that’s through Christ. Like Alma said: (Alma 36: 17)
“And it came to pass that as I was thus racked with torment, while I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins, behold, I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world”
I wish I had access to the words that would help me describe what I feel, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has to be true, or there cannot be a God. And if there isn’t a God, then we don’t exist. But we do exist, so there has to be a God. And if there’s a God, he has to have a church and a way to communicate with us. And if he has a church, which one is it? Well Christ’s true church would need to have apostles like before, and the priesthood like before, and so on and so forth. And the line of thinking just goes on and it leads me back to the same epiphany. This church is true, or there is no God. Ahhhh I wish I could articulate that better but that’s really how I feel.
At the end of the day, believing in God is a choice. And that doesn’t mean that we have total blind faith in believing in God because everything testifies that God exists. Life, death, prayer, scriptures, prophets, the earth, etc. Everything denotes that God is there! And yea we all have questions, but we should never let the little questions mess everything else up.
Elder Uchdorft told a story about a passenger plane where one of the light bulbs on one of the wings went out. Everyone was freaking out and was so focused on why the light bulb wasn’t working, and because they weren’t focused on flying, they ended up crashing the plane. So focus on what matters most! Don’t let a little secondary question that you can’t get an answer to right now crash your spiritual plane.
But it’s also kinda funny because I can also totally see how someone would doubt God’s existence and leave the church. And although I can see that train of thinking, I know it isn’t true.
This was probably a super confusing rant haha but I have a very strong belief in God and I hope that you all felt a little increase of that today.
Mosiah 4:9
“Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.”
Also huge shoutout to BYU for winning the game on Saturday. Go cougs
Love you guys!!
-Elder Wride
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