For p-day this past Monday, we went to an area called Aguadulce, which was more carnival influenced than us in Penonome. We went around looking for an open internet place, but the only ones were in the center of the city, where all the carnival was happening. So we walked in trying to see if they would be open, walking through Sodom and Gomorrah, my comp almost got kissed by this teenage girl, we almost got drenched by like a fire hose (at least we were in normal clothes instead of white shirts and ties) and to top it all off, internet was closed, bummer. After seeing the large amount of corruption that there is in this world, I came to a conclusion and I want to apologize to all the people I have offended in my emails thus far. I always talk about how annoying Catholics' are, how wrong other religions are, blah blah, but I shouldn't say those things. Those people made me realize that even with all their mistakes, us as members of the true Church also make mistakes. They most likely aren't the same mistakes as theirs, but I shouldn't judge people just because they sin differently than I do. I read a really powerful talk in the February issue of the Liahona all about tolerance. We believe in letting people worship who they want and how they want to go about doing it, because we are tolerant. But being tolerant doesn't mean that we just stand back and let people go on with their sinful lives, that is not tolerance that is negligence. We must stand up for the right, and what we know to be true. That's why there are missionaries in this world. If we were merely happy that everyone was in their own specific religion and didn't share this life changing, world changing message, that is NOT being tolerant, that's simply stupidity. That's why I'm here, all the while being tolerant and letting people worship God however they choose to do so, but I have to give them the option of listening to me and this message I have, and the MIRACLES that come from listening, and acting upon how the message is received. Being tolerate does not mean that we can just let inappropriate and wrong behavior happen. We need to stand up and choose the right and show people that what they're doing is wrong and there is more to this life that drinking and partying in the streets. That will only bring you more misery when it's all over and you wake up with your hangover.
Liahonas are awesome, all church magazines are, I want to get subscriptions when I get home, keep reading them in Spanish. We met a lady who came to church last week for the first time who's from Canada, and is now in our ward. She moved here after living there with her husband and 3 kids all grown up now for like 20 years. They're both originally from here in Panama, but moved to Canada after getting married. He's not a member, so we went to go meet him and get to know him and find out why after her being 30 years member of the church and them being married for like 42 years, why he's not a member. They're awesome; he told me all kinds of places in Canada that I have to visit on vacations, so Nana...get ready :) They're cool, and he knows a ton about the church, they even visited Nauvoo and other church history sites. I don't know HOW he's still not baptized; we're going to figure that out this week. They have a gorgeous house as well, living like rich Americans. His name is Lenny by the way. They both speak English obviously but I barely spoke to them at all in English. It was funny because they've only been back for like 3 weeks, so he couldn't think of certain words in Spanish, his OWN language. I would like to think that I'll be like that upon arriving in my home country, but I talk way too much in English to forget how to use it. I'm trying to use more sophisticated vocabulary as well.
I taught a lesson today in district meeting merely with a thought that I've had the past few weeks while reading the Book of Mormon. Alma and Amulek are like missionary giants in the BoM, and they're who we all look up to as our missionary examples. And I thought, "Ok, if they had such amazing success and baptized thousands, how is it that we aren't having very much success? What did they do in their missions that we're failing at?". I made a list on the board today, stating characteristics of Alma and Amulek, what made them so great, and compared them to us as missionaries. We do a lot of those things, so it all came down to the question, do we do them simply to DO them, or do we do them with love for the people? Love is the root of it all. The goal in every missionary's mission is to find a profound love for the people they teach. Alma and Amulek expressed such love for the people they taught, even as they oppressed them and slapped them and threw them in jail. I need to love those that reject and oppose me, which obviously is very difficult, but it has to happen if I want to see success in my mission for these last 8 months (yep passed up the 16 month mark yesterday woah).
The Atonement got a lot more personal for me this week from something that my branch president said which was "Imagine that as the Savior was taking upon Himself all the sins of mankind, that he saw your face as He suffered for YOU, personally, for YOUR sins". Wow. So that is my challenge for all of you back home, imagine the Savior staring into your green, brown, blue, hazel, eyes as He takes upon Himself all of your sins. Would you open up that webpage knowing that? Would you have that bad thought if you thought of the Savior? Would you drink that beer if you thought that? I don't think so.
My two scriptures for you all are the following, Alma 10:22-23 which is for all the people in the world, saying that the prayers of the righteous save the wicked from complete destruction, and lastly 3 Nephi 17:2-3 which is the Savior's invitation to us to ponder on what He teaches us, to make sure we understand, because at first teaching, it's hard to understand completely everything.
I REALLY love you all, a lot, thank you for your prayers, and mail, and love, I definitely feel it.
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