Sunday, February 9, 2014

Catorce Carnivals

     Hola familia! I can´t believe another week has passed by and we are already in February! Time is flying. Here the whole month of February is a big party that´s called ¨carnaval.¨ Every Sunday kids run around throwing water balloons and stuff like that, but all the members told us that in our area it´s not allowed anymore. So yesterday, the first Sunday of February, we were walking to a fireside when all of a sudden we started getting pelted by water balloons! Some kids were throwing balloons at us from the third floor of a building, and not just a few, but tons! So, we got soaked, but went to the fireside anyway ha. We just laughed it off, so it´s just a funny experience now. We thought it was funny that we didn´t even make it past the first day of carnaval without getting soaked!
     This week was a great one as far as the work goes. The members here are awesome! Our ward missionaries are all teenagers who are preparing for the mission, so they all want to come with us to do our visits. This weekend was stake conference, and we had a bunch of members come up to us and offer to take our investigators with them! I think this is going to be my favorite ward in the mission. 
     Here is the update with our investigator Nilo... we had a lesson with him in the week where he told us that he had been really worried about his job and being a member of the church at the same time. He told us that his job wasn´t in harmony with the teachings of the Savior, and he just didn´t feel right keeping his job and being a member of the church. We had a lesson with our ward mission leader, and Nilo told us that he had made the decision to quit his job! He said that what he really admired about us (members) is that we base our beliefs on faith, our feelings, and not so much reason. He said that he just FELT that he needed to quit his job, that the Lord wanted him there in the church. Nilo is such a great example to me! He´s only found the church about two weeks ago, he´s already read the whole book of mormon, and he´s willing to leave everything behind to follow the Savior. It reminds me of the scripture in Mark 8 34-36 
       ¨Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his            cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but          whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and for the gospel´s, the                 same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the            whole world, and lose his own soul?¨
The Lord asks us to give up the very things that we love the most, that are the hardest things to let go. It wouldn´t be a sacrifice if it was easy! 

       This week in stake conference President Borg shared something that really caught my attention. He told a story of when he had gone boating with us three sons, and that their boat and flipped over and they were all thrown from the boat but one of his sons. President had been thrown from the boat and was far away, so couldn´t immediately help his son that had been trapped under the boat. He was comforted by the knowledge that he had taught his son how to swim. Finally his son came to the surface and said that he had been tangled up in the mast and the cables, but had faith that he could escape and rise to the surface because his father had taught him how to swim. We are seperated from our Heavenly Father here and sometimes he can´t help us the way we want him to. But, we can have faith that he teaches us how to swim, how to overcome the trials that we are faced with and resurface. I read a talk from Elder Richard G. Scott in the Liahona for this month, where he says that ¨our character doesn´t develop en the moments of great difficulty or temptation, it is then that it is used.¨ We can´t learn to swim in the moment that we are trapped under the boat, we learn to swim little by little everyday so that when the test comes, we are ready to swim.
     I hope that all made sense. Just something that I learned that I thought I´d share! I love you all so much!! Thanks for writing me always! Have a great week. Hasta luego! 

Love, Hna Anderson 

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