Visiting a Famous Theme Park - Xetulul

Hey everyone!!

Another week has flown by. Here are a few highlights:

1. XETULUL!  (that’s she too lool) On Friday we got to go to Xetulul, a famous theme park here in Central America. Going was a prize for having baptized a family - Daniel and Nereyda. It was fun to have "a day off". For those of y’all who know me, I don’t ride any of those rides because I don’t like heights or falling...that’s kind of lame of me right? So me and some other elder were the bag holders most of the time. But it was fun to watch. I did go on the bumper cars a lot, the kiddie roller coaster, and the merry-go-round he. We also ate a delicious lunch. So for me it was a day well spent.

2. Sunday -- As I’ve kind of explained before, a missionary usually measures his success all week by how many investigators go to church on Sunday. Going to church is critical for the investigators. This past Sunday we were only expecting 2 investigators. Because Josué (the blind guy) went out of town, and some other complications. We were also really concerned about the church attendance because it’s been dropping a lot and last week hit a record low. So we also spent a lot of time this week visiting less-actives. 

On Sunday morning, as always, we went around waking people up, both investigators and less-actives. Unfortunately our 2 investigators were nowhere to be found. Another blow was that on the way walking to church, our recent converts say they’re not going either. It’s sad to walk to church alone on Sunday, without even your recent converts. You can really feel like you’re failing, like you haven’t done the job that Heavenly Father has assigned to you. Sigh.  Well, even though it’s always a crushing blow to not have investigators. at church, during the Sacrament I looked around and saw a few of the less actives who we had visited during the week, partaking of the sacrament and renewing their covenants, and I just felt like Heavenly Father was really happy about that. He was happy to see a few of his children who hadn’t been in a while. It really was a special sacrament moment. And after the sacrament had been passed, lots more less-actives came in, and bummer that they missed the sacrament, but at least they came, right? There were even some less actives we hadn’t visited that showed up. And one of the less-active ladies brought her niece, who’s not a member, so we are excited to meet with her soon. So, moral of the story is, even though on paper it’s wasn’t the best Sunday, it really was a special Sunday for me. 

The area I’m in right now has been really hard, the hardest yet for me. It’s really hard here to find investigators, the ward can hardly function, and lots of other challenges. But in this area I am learning so many things and am grateful for the challenges. It has been a battle to stay positive, to keep going, but it is worth it. I love the Gospel and know that it is true. I’m learning a lot about the power of faith and patience, the principle of working hard even without seeing results, and trusting in the Lord. I know that if we put our confidence in him His purposes will be realized, and little by little he will shape us into better people, and use us to do his work. I testify that Christ lives and loves us so much that he sacrificed so much more than we can imagine in order to give us this time here on earth, to grow, to obey, to change, to learn, and in the end to return to live in their presence, if we have done everything he has asked us to do. I love the gospel. It is perfect. This is my testimony.

I hope that y’all can have another great week and can get back into the swing of things with school and everything!!  Thanks for your support and prayers!

Love,

Hermana Gilland