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| mango, on a stick! with lime, chile, salsa, and gastritis! |
How have you all been this week? Im still down here in mexico. Miss me yet? No, don't answer that.
Sincerely,
Elder Mortensen
jajaja no se crean. k pasa familia! k onda como stamos? [Good luck. I can't make it out -- Dad]
Sorry, I got a little sun baked today...
Man. I'm gonna come home and read these things shaking my head about how mindless my letters are haha.
Well, in this epistol a la familia y amigos de Elder Mortensen muchas cosas han pasado [in this letter to the family and friends of Elder Mortensen many things have happened] . I should stop writing in Spanish now. Looks like my journal. You've gotta be bilingual to read the thing.
I have no clue how to start this email. I sure do crack myself up though. We have an 1.5 hours to write now, and I have no clue how to fill the time. As you can tell, I haven't a clue about muchas cosas [many things].
This week went a little better. We had 5 in church and a whole inactive family come! That was pretty cool. Going to start working with them a bit! There are 3 people still not baptized. Blanca, la tia de Julio, came, and we are gonna ya put a date for her baptism for this weekend. She wants to do it, and she wants her family to do it too. We challenged ourselves to teach her everything again this week so she will be really prepared for her baptism. Hoping and praying it all turns out good. Her daughter came too. We just gotta tell her to quit smoking. 20 años [years old] and smoking! que feo [ugly]. We almost got Carlos in the water. He lost his fotos and records in the church when they came down here to Mexico and isn't really even a member.. He was gonna get baptized this weekend before his mom left for playa del carmen otra vez, but the kid smoked. 18 years old, and the finals sure "got to him"... He is leaving in a week for Mexico (city) for 6 weeks, and good luck finding him and his mom together again. She only comes every 15 days. Bye Carlos!
Jairo and Carlo are playing "Where's Waldo" with the bad guys. It's pretty serious. They don't tell anyone where they are or they are gonna come and kill them. I sure hope they can get baptized one day... They called their friend Bardo, the member that presented us, and said they really wanted to get baptized. I hope they come back soon, if not, they will get baptized by someone else, but I want to be in the sealing! They were really cool. It's too bad he got caught up in this.
We found a few new people, and we have been sweating and walking/running up the famed hills of San Andres.
This Sunday we fasted to find out why we aren't having success or why we aren't really united. That really wasn't the problem, and we worked that out with talking, but the Lord helped me realize in a very hard way why he hasn't been blessing us with success, and now I understand a wholleeeee lot more. I read in Lucas 5 when Peter is fishing and can't catch anything, but then the LORD TELLS him what to do, and he caught so many he couldn't catch them all.. It was a moment of pure revelation, pure communication with God, but that doesn't mean it was a very joyful moment. He kind of let me know what I was doing wrong, and I realize my huge mistake. In my want and need for people to teach and baptisms to do, I forgot the Lord. I always prayed, and sometimes my prayers were really heartfelt, but I had forgotten Him in his work, and I was demanding blessings from His hands. Now, I was never rude or disrespectful, I just made the mistake of thinking that my faith and my pleas would be answered, because God is there to bless, and he wants baptisms, I want baptisms, He wants the salvation of his children and so do I! But I realized I never asked what he wanted. I was trying to make my will his, and it's a lesson learned I will never ever forget...
Like Christ pleaded in the garden of Getsemani, Father, if thou wilt, pass from me this cup, but not my will be done, but Thine... Our prayers have to be like Christs. If we want something, we ask for it, but like James E. Talmadge says en Jesus the Christ, his will was ALWAYS VOLUNTARY. ALWAYS SECONDARY. Man...
I made the mistake of leaving him outside when I entered in a lesson and used my own knowledge of the scriptures and my own experience with different situations thinking I could do it... boy was I completely wrong. This IS the Lord's work. I'm preaching HIS gospel, and I have to do it HIS way. I learned a very important lesson, and I hope you all can learn from my mistake...
I love you all. This is the true church. Christ suffered so much in the Garden of Getsemani so we can be with God. You and I will never understand the depths of His sacrifice, and His love for us. I love the scripture in D&C. They are righteous men, made PERFECT in the atonement of Christ. Are we forever in debt for what he did. I love my God. He is my Father. I love my Savior and Redeemer. Think about those words.. Savior. Redeemer. You all have homework to find everything you can on the two subjects and report back to me next week!
Christ loves you. His love for us in infinite, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
ELDER MORTENSEN
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