Friday, March 6, 2015

It's not every day that the hermanas call someone to leave the bar...

Another week... in the Emerald City!! Not quite the Emerald City... but seriously I love San Pedro Sula. It is the best place ever. Even if there are random rain storms every once in a while :)
This week has been full of crazy adventures.
First thing, super sad... had to say goodbye to two of my best friends in the whole wide world :( It is the hardest thing saying goodbye. Hate it!
But on happy notes... my companion and I got another change together! This makes like a million changes for her in the area, and she will officially "kill me" (be my last companion) But I am super stoked I get to be with this Dominicana another six weeks :D
This week we put a bunch of baptismal dates and we are exited to "echar fuego!" make fire these next few weeks.
The best news ever is that we finally found the familia Barrientos!! So crazy story we were in an area we almost never go to.. and I saw someone I knew so we went to go talk to him. Well he is the son of a family that I knew in my last area, El Bosque, and I met him once at their house. So it was a big surprise seeing him again! We put a time to go back, and they weren't there. We have tried a million times to visit them and they are never home. This week we finally caught them! We visited them once just us, and the second time we went with the amazing Hermana Aguilar (the Relief Society president) and the hermana totally opened up and said how much she missed the church. Well this week the entire family was there at 9:00 on the dot dressed in their beautiful sunday clothes and stayed for all three hours. So great! And after church we went over to celebrate their babies one year birthday party.. and I got to see the whole Family Barrientos again. Also super awesome :)
Also, we did something that we have never done before. We totally called one of our investigators to leave a bar. Yep. Well, it was Saturday night, and we had a lesson with him planned for 6:30. Well, we arrived at 7:00 and he was nowhere to be found. Thanks to some neighbours we had an idea where he was. Well, we went to the billare (which is what it is called here) and there he was, in plain site of the door. After yelping Jose a few times he finally heard us and came out. He promised to leave and we met him at the church. Luckily we caught him before he did anything. Whooo Satan works hard. Haha but good thing we do too :) Afterwards we dropped him safely off with a member so that he could make it to church the next day.
And... yesterday a member made us sopa de caracol. SO DELICIOUS. yum yum yum yum yum. Who knew snails were so delicious?
For the spiritual part of the week, I read an amazing article in a Liahona from about 10 years ago about the Sabbath day. Best article ever! I will have to search for it because it was amazing. The sabbath day must be pretty hard to keep, and pretty important, because out of the ten commandments, it is the only commandment to have FOUR VERSES. And hey, in the old testament, those that weren't found keeping the sabbath day were... struck dead. I think God is pretty serious about Sunday. Sometimes we feel like God is putting on us a bunch of restrictions, but really, we need Sundays to remember God and to feed our Spirit. If we don't use our Sundays properly... well, we may not find ourselves physically dead, but we will be spiritually dead... and spiritually death in the scriptures is what describes Sprit Prison and the Terestial and Telestial Kingdoms.
I will just leave some beautiful quotes from President Kimball. https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-spencer-w-kimball/chapter-16?lang=eng

"
The Sabbath is a holy day in which to do worthy and holy things. Abstinence from work and recreation is important, but insufficient. The Sabbath calls for constructive thoughts and acts, and if one merely lounges about doing nothing on theSabbath, he is breaking it. To observe it, one will be on his knees in prayer, preparing lessons, studying the gospel, meditating, visiting the ill and distressed, writing letters to missionaries, taking a nap, reading wholesome material, andattending all the meetings of that day at which he is expected.8 
Take time [on the Sabbath] to be together as families to converse with one another, to study the scriptures, to visit friends, relatives, and the sick and lonely. This is also an excellent time to work on your journals and genealogy.9 
To hunt and fish on the Lord’s day is not keeping it holy. To plant or cultivate or harvest crops on the Sabbath is not keeping holy the Lord’s day. To go into the canyons for picnics, to attend games or rodeos or races or shows or otheramusements on that day is not to keep it in holy remembrance." 
HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!!



1 comment: