Floating. I'm floating! WOAH! Not actually floating, that would be really strange, like that lady I explained earlier about her seeing her husband levitating...not that. I'm floating between comps now because Elder Meyer is now back home. When we went into the temple to have a meeting with President Carmack, all the 4 missionaries that were dying came with us, including my favorite Latin, Elder Ortiz. I love that guy. It was really hard for both of us to say goodbye, a Latin bromance. He really was one of my best comps. Him and I talked for a long time the night before him leaving, we had a really great time together out there in David for like 3 months. When Meyer left and I didn't have another comp to go back to my area with that night, I thought, umm...what do I do now? Haha. I got permission from Pres to go back by myself and then call another missionary in our zone to have him meet up with me at my house so I wasn't by myself, but I found another solution. That same day, our ward had gone to the temple, and there was a young guy that's heading off to Peru on the mission in like 2 months, so he came back with me and spent the night, until a zone meeting we had the next morning and met up with another missionary. Since then, I've been with a guy that was in the same zone as me back when I was in Penonomé, Elder Snyder from Syracuse, Utah. Awesome guy. He agreed to stick around with me until changes this Wednesday when I'll get my new comp, whoever he may be.
I can't believe it, I'm in my last change, I can finally officially be one of those "dying missionaries". Yuck. I don't want to go home. I remember being with Jarquin, who wrote me actually! He's married now! That's so funny, mi nica gordito ya se casó. He always told me a joke, would point up at an airplane passing overhead and say "Hey Kniff, how far away do you think that airplane is?" Uhh...like a mile away? "No, 2 weeks, HAHA!" Love that guy. Now I can say that, but 6 weeks, not 2.
This has been a really great week though. So much going on, I've been crazed, trying to find a comp to stay with, having a conference with Elder Ochoa, a 70; that was amazing. Also, having baptisms at the last second for the sisters in our ward, one on Saturday and one on Sunday morning and one tonight actually, but that one is the ward's. The baptisms went really well, not tons of people there but they were great experiences, 2 older guys that felt really welcomed into the ward, they've made friends already. This girl tonight for the ward's asked me if I would baptize her, named Cristine. Cute little girl, she wanted me to do it because her uncle had to work and can't make it.
The conference with Elder Ochoa though was one of the best yet in the mission, along with Elder Duncan and Elder Russell M. Nelson at the beginning of my mission way back when. Ochoa talked a lot about us being "the ones that have to take out the stinger of sin in peoples' lives" "las espinas del pecado que están bien profundas y metidas en esas personas." We have to be the moms with the tweezers for the little boy that walks out on the porch and gets splinters in his feet. Some are really deep, so deep that they don't even feel them anymore, and they've been there so long. That's what I've seen here. People are so used to living sinful lives that they no longer see any harm in it, it's just simply normal to live that way, because everyone else does it. Ochoa went on to explain that us as missionaries and God's children don't realize the effect we have on people. Think about it...maybe 20 years down the line my son or daughter comes back to Panama here to serve the mission and meets someone that I used to teach and dropped because they didn't have the desire to repent and be baptized. I know that miracles like that happen, because I've seen, felt and lived them. He also explained to us the importance of leadership and being a real leader. He said that the most profound example of leadership is found by researching the Atonement. God allowing His Son to suffer the pains of every people that has ever lived or would ever live, and telling him that He must suffer that bitter cup and not let it pass. He had to do it, and God permitted it because He knew that it was necessary for the salvation of all mankind. A true leader wants to see the best of his followers, wants them to live up to their highest potential. Christ descended below all of us. He left the Celestial presence of His Father and Our Father, to become mortal, so that through His sacrifice, we could all rise up to His level. He was already there, we were too, but were unable to return there without a Mediator.
I know that the Atonement is true. I've felt the most microscopic version of how Christ must have felt taking upon himself our sins. I'm just now beginnning to understand what it really means.
I want you all to know that I love you, but no where in comparison to how much God and Jesus Christ love you. it is impossible for me to feel such unconditional love. I want to leave you with a great scripture, my answer to the famous Panamanian saying "Si Dios quiere...", which we all know He does. 1 John 3:18. Let us be people of action, not just people of mouth. It serves no purpose to promise things that you will never complete. I'll let you all know next week who my asesino is ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment