Hello everyone!
I can’t believe we are in October...that
is crazy! I hope yall had a great week. We did, it just flew by. Here’s are a
few things that happened:
1. Baptism of niños Daniela and Dilan! Yay! Ha. In this mission baptizing niños is kind of looked down upon because usually the kids can’t stay active, but hey, everyone needs baptized right? I prefer to think that they are future partial families that will be ready for missionaries in several years. Anyways, the baptism went great and problem free :)
We had an interesting experience we had teaching them last week though. They live here with their grandparents, their mom is in the US and isn’t coming back for 7 years, and their grandma is a less active we are reactivating, and we are hoping that baptizing her grandkids motivate her to go to church and spark interest in other family members. Their great aunt Beti, who lives a few houses down, was visiting one day when we went to teach. Sometimes it’s hard for me to know how to teach and where to focus when there is a big group and variety of needs, but we went for it and tried teaching "the Gospel of Jesus Christ" (A of 4) to Beti, talking about how the kids were going to get baptized, how it’s a commandment that EVERYONE gets baptized, etc. And this lady was driving me a little nuts because she was just insisting that to be baptized you have to read the bible a ton and be really prepared, and if you don’t do that you’re going to regret getting baptized. And I ask her "is someone ever going to regret obeying a commandment of God? Is someone ever going to regret doing what God wants you to do?" Well, obviously not, but she was still being all cranky about it and insisting that you have to study for years before you get baptized. Here the Evangelicals teach that a lot, that you shouldn’t get baptized unless you’ve read the Bible a lot and studied and know a whole lot of stuff -- FALSE DOCTRINE! (And if they would just read the bible for a second and think about it, they’d realize that that’s true. Jesus was always talking about how wicked the Pharisees and Sadducees and all those guys were. Jesus’ followers were poor people, people who probably couldn’t even read or study. Duh.) Christ is always talking about how we need to become as little children -- and little children don’t know much about anything, right? We read her a few verses that talked about that and that we should repent and become as little children and be baptized. And then we went about and challenged each person to be baptized -- first cranky Beti, then the uncle, and they both of course said no, maybe after learning a whole lot, but no way. Then we asked all the little kids present, and of course all of them said yes. My comp. then made a wonderful comment that that is why Jesus loves the children and tells us adults to be more like them, because they are willing to obey His commandments. It’s true. Kids definitely break lots of rules and need lots of correction, but they are teachable and correctable. And when we teach them what Jesus wants them to do and how much He loves them, they want to do it, whatever it is. I really learned a lot in that lesson, and hope in that aspect to be more like a child.
Beti came to Daniela and Dilan's baptism, and my comp said that she saw that she was crying a bit when they were getting baptized. So she knows what we were saying is true. We will be seeing if she is willing to work with us now, or if her pride is still in the way.
2. Something I failed to mention last week is that in this area THEY ARE FEEDING US A TON!!!! AGH! And I’m gaining weight. I haven’t gained weight my whole mission, and here in my last 2 or 3 months I’m going to ruin everything! But listen, it’s not my fault!! The people here are SOOO NICE and give us everything they have. We just pass the whole afternoon eating and eating and eating. This is my poorest area I’ve had, lots of people here have nothing at all. But they treat us so special and give us all they have. I really don’t have words to describe it, and I feel bad that I complain about so much food because the people are just so special and kind. Like yesterday, our first dinner was with a sweet little family who lives in the boonies in a one room dirt floor shack. My comp found them during the week when we did divisions with some members, and they invited us to their 7 year olds birthday dinner. They made really special food and treated us so well, and they don’t even know us! I don’t know why they think we are so special. In this ward they pass a calendar around relief society to sign up for when to feed us lunch, and the poorest people sign up the most, and it’s because they know that the Lord is going to bless them for their service. It just absolutely breaks my heart to see. And really, I just hope I can be half as decent a person as some of these people who bend over backwards to help us and serve us. It’s really special.
But the bad part is that I’m gaining a little bit of weight, and the worst part is that I just feel so stuffed and sick all the time. ALL THE TIME. Another example: normally here I wouldn’t eat dinner because I’m still full from lunch, but one day last week the grandma of the kids who got baptized invited us over for dinner and gave us a TRUCKLOAD of food. Here it’s custom for the host to serve the plates, and we cant say that we don’t want something or want less of something. She gave us a GIANT plate of the typical dinner of eggs, beans, cream, tortillas, hot milk-rice drink, papaya, bread. And I was just dying eating it all. But I made it. But then the whole night I couldn’t even sleep because I just felt so full. Then the whole next day I was so tired. So in that aspect, it’s kind of a hard life here. I don’t really know how I’m going to make it another 2 months of constant eating. Yesterday: 1 lunch, 2 dinners, and a snack. Saturday: 2 huge lunches back to back, the snack at the baptism, and giant dinner. Man. I seriously don’t know what we are going to do here. Ha-ha.
Well that’s about all I had to share for the week. Things are going great here, and we are working really hard and rolling right along. I know that this work is really important and I have so many things to learn -- ha, sometimes I think they’re going to have to keep me out a few more months so I can learn what I need to learn. I know that the Gospel is true. I know that everyone needs to repent and be baptized and keep repenting afterwards in order to be happy in this life. I’m grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ. Thanks for everything, and have a great week!!
Love,
1. Baptism of niños Daniela and Dilan! Yay! Ha. In this mission baptizing niños is kind of looked down upon because usually the kids can’t stay active, but hey, everyone needs baptized right? I prefer to think that they are future partial families that will be ready for missionaries in several years. Anyways, the baptism went great and problem free :)
We had an interesting experience we had teaching them last week though. They live here with their grandparents, their mom is in the US and isn’t coming back for 7 years, and their grandma is a less active we are reactivating, and we are hoping that baptizing her grandkids motivate her to go to church and spark interest in other family members. Their great aunt Beti, who lives a few houses down, was visiting one day when we went to teach. Sometimes it’s hard for me to know how to teach and where to focus when there is a big group and variety of needs, but we went for it and tried teaching "the Gospel of Jesus Christ" (A of 4) to Beti, talking about how the kids were going to get baptized, how it’s a commandment that EVERYONE gets baptized, etc. And this lady was driving me a little nuts because she was just insisting that to be baptized you have to read the bible a ton and be really prepared, and if you don’t do that you’re going to regret getting baptized. And I ask her "is someone ever going to regret obeying a commandment of God? Is someone ever going to regret doing what God wants you to do?" Well, obviously not, but she was still being all cranky about it and insisting that you have to study for years before you get baptized. Here the Evangelicals teach that a lot, that you shouldn’t get baptized unless you’ve read the Bible a lot and studied and know a whole lot of stuff -- FALSE DOCTRINE! (And if they would just read the bible for a second and think about it, they’d realize that that’s true. Jesus was always talking about how wicked the Pharisees and Sadducees and all those guys were. Jesus’ followers were poor people, people who probably couldn’t even read or study. Duh.) Christ is always talking about how we need to become as little children -- and little children don’t know much about anything, right? We read her a few verses that talked about that and that we should repent and become as little children and be baptized. And then we went about and challenged each person to be baptized -- first cranky Beti, then the uncle, and they both of course said no, maybe after learning a whole lot, but no way. Then we asked all the little kids present, and of course all of them said yes. My comp. then made a wonderful comment that that is why Jesus loves the children and tells us adults to be more like them, because they are willing to obey His commandments. It’s true. Kids definitely break lots of rules and need lots of correction, but they are teachable and correctable. And when we teach them what Jesus wants them to do and how much He loves them, they want to do it, whatever it is. I really learned a lot in that lesson, and hope in that aspect to be more like a child.
Beti came to Daniela and Dilan's baptism, and my comp said that she saw that she was crying a bit when they were getting baptized. So she knows what we were saying is true. We will be seeing if she is willing to work with us now, or if her pride is still in the way.
2. Something I failed to mention last week is that in this area THEY ARE FEEDING US A TON!!!! AGH! And I’m gaining weight. I haven’t gained weight my whole mission, and here in my last 2 or 3 months I’m going to ruin everything! But listen, it’s not my fault!! The people here are SOOO NICE and give us everything they have. We just pass the whole afternoon eating and eating and eating. This is my poorest area I’ve had, lots of people here have nothing at all. But they treat us so special and give us all they have. I really don’t have words to describe it, and I feel bad that I complain about so much food because the people are just so special and kind. Like yesterday, our first dinner was with a sweet little family who lives in the boonies in a one room dirt floor shack. My comp found them during the week when we did divisions with some members, and they invited us to their 7 year olds birthday dinner. They made really special food and treated us so well, and they don’t even know us! I don’t know why they think we are so special. In this ward they pass a calendar around relief society to sign up for when to feed us lunch, and the poorest people sign up the most, and it’s because they know that the Lord is going to bless them for their service. It just absolutely breaks my heart to see. And really, I just hope I can be half as decent a person as some of these people who bend over backwards to help us and serve us. It’s really special.
But the bad part is that I’m gaining a little bit of weight, and the worst part is that I just feel so stuffed and sick all the time. ALL THE TIME. Another example: normally here I wouldn’t eat dinner because I’m still full from lunch, but one day last week the grandma of the kids who got baptized invited us over for dinner and gave us a TRUCKLOAD of food. Here it’s custom for the host to serve the plates, and we cant say that we don’t want something or want less of something. She gave us a GIANT plate of the typical dinner of eggs, beans, cream, tortillas, hot milk-rice drink, papaya, bread. And I was just dying eating it all. But I made it. But then the whole night I couldn’t even sleep because I just felt so full. Then the whole next day I was so tired. So in that aspect, it’s kind of a hard life here. I don’t really know how I’m going to make it another 2 months of constant eating. Yesterday: 1 lunch, 2 dinners, and a snack. Saturday: 2 huge lunches back to back, the snack at the baptism, and giant dinner. Man. I seriously don’t know what we are going to do here. Ha-ha.
Well that’s about all I had to share for the week. Things are going great here, and we are working really hard and rolling right along. I know that this work is really important and I have so many things to learn -- ha, sometimes I think they’re going to have to keep me out a few more months so I can learn what I need to learn. I know that the Gospel is true. I know that everyone needs to repent and be baptized and keep repenting afterwards in order to be happy in this life. I’m grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ. Thanks for everything, and have a great week!!
Love,
Hermana Gilland
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