June 9 I Am A Girl With a Purpose

I am extremely blessed this week—16  letters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much seriously thank you so much. I miss you guys and think about you guys so much and I feel so bad that I can´t keep in contact like I used to. I always like to know what everyone is doing and have that time to connect, and now I don´t have it, because I am a girl with a purpose!!!! ¨It is expected that you dedicate all your time and attention to the Lord, putting in segundo plano your personal affairs.¨ Well this is definitely true in the misión (haha, sometimes the computer automatically changes my words into Spanish)!!! ¨I¨ don´t exist. Well that´s not true. The only time I exist is on Monday when I write to y´all and when I have interviews with the Mission President. He is really awesome and he is really good at getting your concerns out of you when you didn´t even know they existed.

our church building 

I always thought it would be sooo awesome to be a misión president´s wife, because you could be a mom to so many kids who are away from their moms, but now I have changed my mind because I would never wish that on my future husband!!! There are way to many problems of every kind—putting up with shenanigans, or being responsible for 250 young people´s physical and spiritual well-being, in the midst of political or social complaints (not that there´s anything political going on here, just that it would be a huge responsibility for any organization, and we´re not just any organization. This is the organization and the work of our Heavenly Father, so Satan hates it, and he creates opposition constantly. It reminds me of when Condoleeza Rice came to BYU and spoke to us and said that every single day after September 11 they expected attacks, because attacks were planned, and that it was a true miracle that every single day they were able to prevent these attacks.). Anyway, I thought I wasn´t too selfish of a person before but this has shifted my perspective 180 degrees. But I wish I could communicate to all of you with adequate words how small of a sacrifice my year and a half is compared to what I have received and what I will receive. I personally do not have the words, but I do personally have the conviction that serving a misión is a pinzy (hi Beef!) offering compared to what I have received and what I will receive.

The cutest, tiniest, happiest grandma ever

Today I want to share with you all an out-of-body experience I had this week. We were talking with Hermano Gonzalez*, the dad of an inactive family that we visit a lot. They have 4 kids; the oldest is my age and has two daughters and lives with them, and then three sons—19, 17, and 15. The granddaughters are kinda wild and the sons have problems with partying and Brother Gonzalez doesn´t feel worthy to go to church and Sister Gonzalez has her own business and works on Sundays because money is tight (well who isn´t money tight for?). Anyway, we were talking tonight and he was sharing his misión stories and advice. I don´t feel like the best of friends with them, like I do with a couple families here. But I looked in his eyes and I felt the most love I have felt for anyone so far in the misión. But the out-of-body part was what the love felt like. Like it didn´t come from me.

I just somehow by looking in his eyes felt in that moment what Christ was feeling for him. Like Christ took His finger and dipped it into His heart and then took my heart and wiped the front of it with the feelings for Hermana Gonzalez that were on his finger. I have never felt like that before, it was so crazy. It was not the magnitude of love that was crazy, because I have loved that deeply before, but only for people I have spent massive amounts of time with or causes I have spent a massive amount of time on.  It was the way I felt it. Those other experiences were Christ-like love, But today was like: what Christ was experiencing… implanted onto me.

I know He did this for a reason. So that I can understand how He feels about me and every one of my investigators. So that I can better understand my puropse as a missionary and so that I can work more diligently to fulfill it.

I know that that night my heart was open and that Christ will teach me personally, if I let my heart be open.

This is our inspiration wall. *Look close, Isabel :D