lessons on lessons on lesson

I've learned so many things these past few weeks that I could probably give a 6 hour sermon on all of them, but here's just a short email on a few of them:

WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by
Emily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

A lot of times we can get to Holland when we want to be in Italy. The things the Lord gives us aren't the things we want! But he always knows best. I remember at the beginning of my mission when I was always sick or getting robbed or not having any success whatsoever that I was REALLY upset. I mean I was just sick and tired of being a missionary and could only think "why would the Lord let all this happen to one of his servants?" I was obedient and working hard, but all that happened to me. So one day I told my dad "Dad, the Lord isn't giving me what I need" and my dad definitely jumped right on that and corrected me, telling me that the Lord was giving me exactly what I needed, but it definitely wasn't what I wanted. I'm grateful now that I've passed through those trials and I've learned from them. So instead of just complaining and having the mentality of "woe is me" we should try to learn from all the difficulties we have in life. The Lord wants us to learn and progress, and that's why we're here.

Thanks for reading everyone! Next week or the week after I'll share some more profound thoughts. Writing these letters is just getting more and more difficult haha. But only 19 more! So make sure to read them all haha. Love you guys, have a great week.

This week was actually also great for us!!  I feel like most missionaries have felt discouraged at some point in their mission, I mean that it just sucks and it's not fun, but I feel like more than anything I've learned that Jesus is my best friend, and when no one else is there he always is. I feel like more than anything that's what I want people to understand from me, is that through Christ we can feel better. We can have a friend in Him. I played the piano for the young women's choir this week in our ward conference and they sang the mutual theme "Peace in Christ". I don't know the lyrics in English but there's one part of the song that says "there will be no more tears". I really liked that part. I've been doing really good recently, just really tired! Trying to get over the exhaustness that I'm feeling. President was like "just sleep when you get home" hahaha so I'm trying to do that lol. Have a great week!

Elder Jones

life be good

This week was the best week we've had (in the sense of numbers) in a loooongg time. It felt good to see all our work in the numbers we had. We were able to find a lot of new investigators and had a lot of people go to church. Pray for us out here! Pray for the family Chavez Pacheco, and Fernando, and Estela. Other than that, not much has happened. It's been a normal week of solid work. 

A thought that I had this past week was something I read in Alma 37:

And now, my son, remember the words which I have spoken unto you; trust not those secret plans unto this people, but 

teach them an everlasting hatred against sin and iniquity. 

I read this and thought it was really interesting that Alma says that Helaman should teach an "everlasting hatred" against sin and iniquity. I think some times we tolerate sin a little too much, or we have "favorite sins" in our lives. Even as missionaries we have them, things that we do that we probably shouldn't but we don't want to get rid of them. I believe that as Alma taught, we should all have an "everlasting hatred" against sin and iniquity. If we can develop that then we'll be able to avoid many problems that we could have in life. I know that small things we develop in our lives like this intolerance for sin, pure love for others, patience, and other attributes of Christ, we'll have more fun in life. We'll enjoy it more and see more of the good in everything! I'm sorry I don't have anymore pictures I really, really need to take some. Have a great week everyone!! Love you guys!

Elder Jones

Man I wish we had spring break as missionaries haha. I'm SO exhausted. I actually slept terribly all week except last night, which was like the best sleep I've gotten in my whole life. I took some nyquil cause I'm getting sick again and it knocked me out. It was heavenly. Church was good, I'm playing the piano for the young women's choir and they're gonna sing next week, and they actually sound super good! For my birthday I would like to just sleep for a day straight. The best part of this past week was seeing 4 of our investigators get to church. I was really worried, so we went outside to wait for them, but it turns out that they slipped in somehow and we didn't see them! So we got back in there and I saw them and was like "what in the world?????" but it was cool. Something that made me laugh...idk my compa is a funny guy, he's just weird haha so I'm always laughing at something. The worst part was waking up every day. I hate waking up. Something sad was that some of our other investigators didn't get there :/ Oh well. The best thing I ate was some pizza. I'll take you guys to the special pizzeria when we come back. Worst thing was a tamal in a bolillio, I normally love them but this morning it was gross. And that was my week! love you lots mom! One favor: an hermana in the ward that I'm really close to is teaching Sunday school and struggles with the fact that her students don't pay attention and stuff like that. Can you send me something or make a video so that I can translate it for her? I think she'd like it. Love you lots!!!!! Have a great week mom, talk to you soon.

lovity, love, love, and amor

I've been thinking a lot about love lately. Not necessarily in the sense of getting married haha. A few weeks ago president sent a talk called "agency and love in marriage" and it talks about how we don't just "fall in love". Even though we use that phrase a lot, it's become something that seems just like an accident, like "oops I tripped and fell in love with a person". What this talk talks about is how love and agency are intertwined. Everytime we love someone, it's not just a coincidence, but we choose to love that person. Also the phrase "fall out of love" has become very common, and it implies the same thing, that two people just accidentally fell out of love, but it's not true! I would say that God has many reasons not to love us because of the mistakes we make, and when we're not obedient and all that fun stuff, but he continues choosing to love us. It's the same in marriage, in the family, with friends, and members in the church. Our circumstances can not prevent us from loving someone, we have to choose to keep loving that person. 

The other thought about love that I've had is a scripture in
1 John 3:18 :

My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; 
but in deed and in truth.

This scripture is really interesting, because saying "I love you" and showing it are two very different things. Yesterday at church someone said "I can't hear you speaking because your actions are too loud." and that is really true, because love is an action. I can say "I love you" to my mom, but if i don't ever wash the dishes or sweep the kitchen or make my bed, do I really love her? I'd like to invite all of us to be able to not love in word neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth. let us all show the love we have for others not just saying it, but proving it to them. I know that if we do so, if we strive to love others more, we'll feel more loved in our own lives. I know that Christ and God live and they love us! I know that repentance is real, we can always change, no matter how far we've gone away from God. I love you guys! Have a great week!

Elder Jones