Hello Friends and Family!
I hope you've all had a good week. This week, all of us missionaries had a huge bomb dropped on us with some changes made by the Church Leadership, but I'll get into that soon. Monday! We were going crazy with so many errands to run, and I think I mentioned this in a past letter that we were in a trio for like 2 seconds, but everything worked out. It's just Hermana Arellano and me for now! :o)
On Tuesday the Hermanas from Villaflores came to stay with us, because on Wednesday we had to be at the church bright and early for a Worldwide Missionary Conference!! President George and the Assistants taught us a bit as well about "Repenting, so you can teach Repentance." I really liked that he told about how us we can't just change our behavior and call it "Repentance" if Jesus Christ is not involved in the process. He is the one who changes our hearts. We talked a bit about two examples from the Bible – Peter and Judas Iscariot. Peter denied the Christ 3 times, but when he realized what he had done, he felt a true sadness – a "Godly sorrow", and then he became an even stronger follower of Christ. Judas Iscariot, on the other hand, betrayed Christ with a kiss for 30 pieces of silver and eventually committed suicide. He felt only the sorrow of a man. So who truly repented?
After the conference with President George, we started the Worldwide Missionary Conference. The most exciting things about this are all the crazy changes that they made!! We have a super strict, set schedule that we all have to abide by. It includes when we sould study and when we can leave the house and what not. But NOW, we can be much more flexible in choosing when we're going to study, plan, teach, and leave our house in the morning. It is totally crazy, and instead of starting P-day when we finish all our studies at 11 am, we get to start by 8 am, which will give us 3 more hours to get our personal stuff done! :o) The other changes discussed during the conference had to do with key indicators we use to determine how effective we are being as missionaries – usually we have to report a LOT of numbers at the end of each week. How many lessons we taught, lessons with members present, if we received references, if we taught less active members, how many people we invited to be baptized, or contacted, - lots of indicators, so the mission knows we're actually out there doing stuff. NOT ANYMORE. Now, we only have to report on a couple of items. That's it!!! Craziness.
Afterwards, we contacted a ton of people who expressed to us how they can't change – not that they don't want to, but that they can't. There is nothing more frustrating than that for me on the mission. Anyone can change! Anyone! I love the quote by Jeffrey R. Holland which states: "However late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don't have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ's atonement shines." No one is lost, that's not to say change is easy, but it's worth it. There's no growth in the comfort zone and there's no comfort in growth zone. I still feel out of my comfort zone sometimes with the new responsibilities I have and speaking in Spanish and talking to random strangers in the street. But it's worth it!
On Thursday, our zone leaders called us and told us we had interviews with President George right that second, so we zoomed on over to the mission home. After the interviews, Hermana George started making Hermana Arellano and I skirts. :o) We also taught a lady that day, who is going to be baptized on February 11th. We are super stoked. We spent like 2 1/2 hours answering all her questions and got home super late. This is directly from my journal: "It makes me feel amazing to have the opportunity to help someone come unto Christ. Sometimes I feel like I can't contain the joy in my heart to see the changes that are happening in the lives of the investigators."
On Saturday we had a lot of appointments that feel through, so we helped a member wash cars.
On Sunday I gave a talk in church, which made me feel a lot more pressure than normal, because there are like 5 times the people than in Mapastapec, but it was fine. We had some of the Young Men recent converts, who are 14 years old, accompany us on visits. They hung outside though when we visited a less active family, and when we came outside they were playing soccer in the streets and had already set up a goals and everything. Honestly, all the stereotypes about Mexico and soccer are true. Haha! We ate dinner with a member, and they gave us a really good fancy meat and ice cream. The members here are super great and it seriously makes all the difference in the work. Our investigator asked how she could do Family Home Evening with her kids, so the bishop invited her over on Monday to see how it is done. Those kind of things really move the work forward. All in all, it was a good week. I hope everyone's doing well!
Con amor, Hermana Dangl
I hope you've all had a good week. This week, all of us missionaries had a huge bomb dropped on us with some changes made by the Church Leadership, but I'll get into that soon. Monday! We were going crazy with so many errands to run, and I think I mentioned this in a past letter that we were in a trio for like 2 seconds, but everything worked out. It's just Hermana Arellano and me for now! :o)
On Tuesday the Hermanas from Villaflores came to stay with us, because on Wednesday we had to be at the church bright and early for a Worldwide Missionary Conference!! President George and the Assistants taught us a bit as well about "Repenting, so you can teach Repentance." I really liked that he told about how us we can't just change our behavior and call it "Repentance" if Jesus Christ is not involved in the process. He is the one who changes our hearts. We talked a bit about two examples from the Bible – Peter and Judas Iscariot. Peter denied the Christ 3 times, but when he realized what he had done, he felt a true sadness – a "Godly sorrow", and then he became an even stronger follower of Christ. Judas Iscariot, on the other hand, betrayed Christ with a kiss for 30 pieces of silver and eventually committed suicide. He felt only the sorrow of a man. So who truly repented?
After the conference with President George, we started the Worldwide Missionary Conference. The most exciting things about this are all the crazy changes that they made!! We have a super strict, set schedule that we all have to abide by. It includes when we sould study and when we can leave the house and what not. But NOW, we can be much more flexible in choosing when we're going to study, plan, teach, and leave our house in the morning. It is totally crazy, and instead of starting P-day when we finish all our studies at 11 am, we get to start by 8 am, which will give us 3 more hours to get our personal stuff done! :o) The other changes discussed during the conference had to do with key indicators we use to determine how effective we are being as missionaries – usually we have to report a LOT of numbers at the end of each week. How many lessons we taught, lessons with members present, if we received references, if we taught less active members, how many people we invited to be baptized, or contacted, - lots of indicators, so the mission knows we're actually out there doing stuff. NOT ANYMORE. Now, we only have to report on a couple of items. That's it!!! Craziness.
Afterwards, we contacted a ton of people who expressed to us how they can't change – not that they don't want to, but that they can't. There is nothing more frustrating than that for me on the mission. Anyone can change! Anyone! I love the quote by Jeffrey R. Holland which states: "However late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don't have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ's atonement shines." No one is lost, that's not to say change is easy, but it's worth it. There's no growth in the comfort zone and there's no comfort in growth zone. I still feel out of my comfort zone sometimes with the new responsibilities I have and speaking in Spanish and talking to random strangers in the street. But it's worth it!
On Thursday, our zone leaders called us and told us we had interviews with President George right that second, so we zoomed on over to the mission home. After the interviews, Hermana George started making Hermana Arellano and I skirts. :o) We also taught a lady that day, who is going to be baptized on February 11th. We are super stoked. We spent like 2 1/2 hours answering all her questions and got home super late. This is directly from my journal: "It makes me feel amazing to have the opportunity to help someone come unto Christ. Sometimes I feel like I can't contain the joy in my heart to see the changes that are happening in the lives of the investigators."
On Saturday we had a lot of appointments that feel through, so we helped a member wash cars.
On Sunday I gave a talk in church, which made me feel a lot more pressure than normal, because there are like 5 times the people than in Mapastapec, but it was fine. We had some of the Young Men recent converts, who are 14 years old, accompany us on visits. They hung outside though when we visited a less active family, and when we came outside they were playing soccer in the streets and had already set up a goals and everything. Honestly, all the stereotypes about Mexico and soccer are true. Haha! We ate dinner with a member, and they gave us a really good fancy meat and ice cream. The members here are super great and it seriously makes all the difference in the work. Our investigator asked how she could do Family Home Evening with her kids, so the bishop invited her over on Monday to see how it is done. Those kind of things really move the work forward. All in all, it was a good week. I hope everyone's doing well!
Con amor, Hermana Dangl
A Monument in Tuxtla.
The view of Tuxtla
Standing next to statue for peace, it's a gun made out of guns.
Street corn I bought that made me feel like Nacho Libre.
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