Mountains to Climb

Hey Fam,

How´s everyone doing? First off, Dad, don’t worry about your letter. A lot of the time you have to make sacrifices to have missionary experiences. Ava, thanks for your letter! That’s so awesome that you have some new dogs and that you’re going to be in first grade! I bet you are like 100 times smarter than when I left. I miss you so bad too and what do you mean I’m almost home? I only have two months in the mission. J Love you Ava!

Well, the Lord has given me some mountains to climb this week. I’ve known since the beginning of the change that a missionary was going home halfway through the change and that there was a good chance that I would go take his place in the field. I was super stoked just because I feel like I’ve been pretty useless in the office lately (folding letters, going to get the mail, washing the car, etc.). Well, the missionary went home and I stayed in the office. It was hard for me to understand why my righteous desire of going out to the field wasn’t being fulfilled. It hit me that I could either waste time complaining about it or I could just forget myself and go to work. That’s when the miracles started happening...

We stopped by an investigator named Mariella that we hadn’t visited for like a week because she just didn’t seem very interested. When we sat down she excitedly said, "I read that book that you gave me!" (referring to the Book of Mormon). That caught us off guard. She opened the introduction and began to read where it invites everyone to read, ponder, and pray about the book. She said, "That´s what I did...and do you know what my answer was?" She began to bear a simple testimony that she knew that everything the book said was true. She has a baptismal date for the 25th of this month. J

Mom, I’ve thought a lot about what you told me last week: "Be the man that the Lord wants you to be." I had a hard time understanding why I was in that area still, especially because nothing was really going on. So, I asked Him what to do. We felt prompted to go and visit a member family that we had never really taken the time to visit. We had a great lesson prepared for them and in the end we invited them to share the gospel with their friends and family. They said that they would think about it, and a little disheartened, we said that we would come back to help them with that process. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the miracle that was taking place. We came back two days later and there was a 19-year-old girl in the kitchen. We began talking to her and she explained that she had been living there for about three months with her boyfriend, who is the member’s nephew. She also explained that she went to church a few weeks ago and that her sister was a member from another city! Long story short...We left Yeseña and Alexander a Book of Mormon after the first visit and they both read and prayed about it and both received an answer. The members that live there are very involved in our lessons, which makes all the difference. We thought they would have a hard time with marriage since they’re a young couple that met through texting about five months ago...but they really want to get married! They have a baptismal date for the 18th of this month. J

I know that when we accept the Lord’s will and work diligently, even if it’s not what we want to do, there are many blessings that come. It was pretty funny because I had already accepted that I would be here until the end of the change but we had interviews this week and President said that he was considering sending me to the field this week. I’m not even going to get my hopes up, but if it were to happen...I’ll know that maybe the Lord just wanted me to witness a couple more miracles in Memorial Sandino.

Well, I’m really not sure what else to write about. I can’t believe how fast time is flying by now. Have fun getting ready for school, playing volleyball, doing mom stuff, etc...

Love,

Elder Ward