3 weeks in Hunucma down, 3 to go (until the end of transfers)!
Well, this Tuesday we had our ward family home evening in the prayer house and the young single adults organized it. They did a good really good job too! It was set up as a discussion group and everyone that was there, participated! (people here are real good at participating, haha). They talked about loving the sinner, not the sin. I liked it because they mentioned how sometimes we're so quick to judge and only love the people that act how we think they should. But the thing is, how impressive is our love really? We haven't mastered loving others until we can love people that are difficult to love.
Friday my companion and I taught our little book of Mormon institute class and it went well. While I was looking over the manual, I found a quote that I really loved. We're still in the first part of the Book of Mormon and there was a quote about the experience where Nephi broke his bow. The quote said something along the lines of "often in moments when things seem ideal in our lives, is when multiple difficulties arise. If the difficulties aren't results of your disobedience, its evidence that the lord knows you're prepared to advance in your progression." Today I saw a real life example of that when we ate with Mari Pot and her husband (members we eat with every Monday). The wife has been a member for several years, but her husband just got baptized a year and a half ago. I guess he used to always think it was dumb that she went to church and he tried to get her not to, and missionaries would come but he never paid attention to them. What made him change though, was that he had a dream one night that he read a scripture and the next day the elders shared that exact scripture. From then on, he looked at things differently and eventually got baptized. He told us today, that since he was baptized he's faced a lot of problems. For example, when he took the temple classes with his wife, the next day things got bad at work and his two little girls started getting sick. They pushed through though, and he said after they finally made it to the temple and were sealed things calmed down. He got called to be a councilor in the bishopric and he said with that calling things have gotten bad again. Today we shared with him in D&C 121 and 122 about Joseph Smith in jail and how God really tests us sometimes, but how its always for our good.
Another lesson we had this week was with Angel, who's the teenage of a member couple. The parents have been bugging us since I got here to visit their son and finally this week we got the chance. It was kind of a sad lesson because the son was super disconnected. He told us how he just plain doesn't want to listen and learn more because he feels happy with his life and himself. We were trying pretty much the whole lesson to ask questions to make him think, but he kept being super, superficial. His parents just sat there so sad and I felt so bad for them. After the prayer and everything the mom started crying because she didn't know what to do for her son, and we didn't either to be honest! The dad told us though that us being there helped him as a dad know what to do for his son and thanked us for it. He said that he and his wife for a while weren't very dedicated to the church and that's where they lost their son and now they're suffering the consequences, which is sad. They said they won't lose the hope though and have the desire to dedicate more of themselves to doing things that ought to be done.
Its so incredible being in a young ward like Hunucma because the members are so inspiring. There are so many converts that still don't know a ton, yet they're learning to dedicate themselves to the church and their testimonies. I love to see how so many are excited to share the gospel and how they know how to do it because they still remember how it was for them with the missionaries and getting to know the church. Haha, like for example, they understand that you have to pick them up on Sunday and teach them how to read the hymn book in sacrament meeting.
One exciting thing this week is that we contacted a member reference and found a really incredible family! The dad wasn't home, but the mom and 4 kids were. There's Alejandro (20 yrs) Haiti (13) Jared (10) and a little girl (2). All of them were excited to listen and willing to do the things we invited them to do. I was so impressed because you could feel how united they were as a family. Finding them was a huge highlight to the week! :)
One last thing- I read an article in the March Liahona that I REALLY liked called "Satan's Rebellion." If you haven't already read it, read it!
Love,
Hermana Harper
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