Dear Mr. Potato Head, Wonder Woman, and L,
Charity is a grand topic for study, and I´ve learned a lot about it in the obra misional. Also, I was impressed by Moroni´s wordsconcerning charity, in that after all other things pass away, charity never will. In that way I understood that it gives our otherChristlike attributes eternal value, because we exercise them for the right reasons, recognizing the eternal potential of everyone elsearound us.
But gosh darn it, Dad, I can´t respond fittingly to your miraculous spiritual insights in twenty minutes. Herp…
Actually, it might be nice to send the spiritual insights in snail-mail form, so that I can prioritize on P-day and respond with my owninsights that I have punt´d in my study journals (I´ve filled almost three notebooks already. Missions are cooool). Really,
they´ll help me to review and revise my own observations, quitando apostasía que quizá ha entrado.
I actually tried to remember my home phone number the other day, thinking of the coming Christmas, and almost couldn´t. Yeeh. That´s Scarry like Richard. And if you didn´t get that reference, Googl´it.
Tell Chris to fear not, for behold I bring cool tidings of great noise. I´ll send him a letter soon!
My companion and I have had a really cool faith-building experience this week. We set goals at the beginning of the semana, andweren´t sure that we´d be able to achieve them, because our numbers had been hideously low the week before (eight lessons and nothing more). We decided to aim for the revised standards that Presidente Carreón nos mandó that night. To achieve those goals,we had to teach at least 3-4 lessons every day. Our sector is so enormous that transportation is difficult, and it´s nearly impossible topass by all the houses of the investigators every day (Presidente Carreón me mandó un correo hoy que dice que están mandandonos bicicletas ahorita. Nos ayudará muchísimo)(President Carreon sent me a letter today that says that they are sending us bicycles now.) A pesar de todo eso, (in spite of all this) we tried to exercise our faith and diligence, with patience in ourafflictions, and it seemed like even when the day was rough or our plans fell through, we always had at least three lessons. We tallied up all our various numbers for the week, and they show an enormous improvement.
I know the goals are not the objective, but achieving our goals sure helps us to invite others to come unto Christ by helping themto receive the restored Gospel. We found several people who were very interesting this week.
Leonardo. We were walking along a road, going to an appointment with Auryl (who by her own 12-year-old strength of will achieved her baptism this week. She´s probably the coolest 12-year-old girl I´ve ever met. The coolest 12-year-old boy I´ve ever met isthe deacon who called the whole ward to repentance on Sunday in his three-to-five-minute discourse. This is a rather long parenthetical comment), and Elder Minquis and I both paused at the same time and looked at a house across the street, withoutsaying anything to each other or even realizing that the other one was stopped. At almost the same moment we said ¨Let´s gocontact that house,¨ (jynx style, though we used different words to say it). We crossed the street and called out our greeting, and outcame an older man who let us in welcomingly. Leonardo lives by himself in this small house on the side of the freeway, and has studied the Bible throughout much of his life. Despite this, he´s never been affiliated with any church, though he´s tried the [another church] and didn´t like it at all. In our first lesson with him, all his doubts and questions became evident, and they were allanswered by the Plan of Salvation, which we taught in the second lesson a couple of days later. He was in some kind of awe, and confirmed that all that we were teaching out of the Book of Mormon was found in the Bible too, though it was more obscure or difficult to understand. We agreed, and we said ¨Nobody else has ever had the answers to these questions I´ve had, and nobody wants to admit that they don´t have them.¨ He came to church this Sunday completely on his own (we didn´t have to go get him),and enjoyed the lessons in Sacrament Meeting and Gospel Principles. He just keeps finding answers to his questions because the church has a modern-day, living prophet that receives these things directly from God.
Cool, huh? Leonardo es escogido, por seguro. Él has sido preparado por nosotros, por su propia lectura y el entendimiento mediante el Espíritu Santo. (Leonardo es chosen, for sure. He has been prepared for us through his own study and understanding through the Holy Spirit.)
De todos modos, ya tengo que irme.
I will call sometime in the afternoon, probably later rather than earlier (after two-thirty, most likely, and maybe after three), as ElderMinquis has to do some kind of preliminary call to set things up with his family and he doesn´t know exactly when they´ll be available. He actually has to compensate for time zones, being from Veracruz. How exotic. We´re going to try to get a camera to use, but we almost assuredly have Skype and a microphone. If worst comes to not so good, I´ll just call y´all.
I love you all, and will talk with you shortly.
Con mucho cariño,
Elder Stuart Mayo
P.S. Tell Kevin he´s pretty cool too. As for a white Christmas…with faith, anything is possible.
