11-10-2011

My dearest family,

 

THANK YOU FOR THE PACKAGE!!!! It was the best thing of my life. The pumpkin cookies rocked my world, everyones world on my floor and in my zone.... So thank you Squat for making them and finally not letting the family eat them. And everything else that was added, alarm clock, postage and stationary, my shirts! I was just dandy.

So a little about my week. It's been great! We had Willian Atkin come who is the churches general international attorney. He told us the coolest stories about how the Lord has opened the doors to so many countries, like the churches opportunity to get into many countries in Europe was a window of only a couple weeks to get missionaries in there and get the church registered. He talked to us about religious freedom through out the world, he said 32% of countries still don't have religious freedom, but that 32% of countries contains 70% of the worlds population! CRAZZZZY. We still have so much missionary work to do. No wonder why every conference we hear a call for missionaries and worthy able young men and women, and couples to rise to their duty and share the gospel. So that was really interesting.

Then we had a workshop on the importance of teaching the restoration to all our investigators. There was a quote by Jeffery R Holland that I LOVED, he said something to the effect of, "Light comes from God. There are many people and many religions which have this light, that are good and have truths. But the events that happened the spring of 1820 are the only thing that seperate us from all the other good religions. Because of the things that were restored through Joseph Smith the avalilability of the atonement and the fullness of the atonement have been restored." If you think about it this way it's totally true. Because Joseph Smith restored the preisthood we are able to take in full effect of the atonement by means of repentance, baptism, gift of the holy ghost, temple work, sealing families, the sacrament, setting apart with preisthood authority, modern day prophets and revelation which have brought forth the word of wisdom and other commandments. Without any of this the reality, cleansing power, strength and fullness of the atonement would not be completely avalible to any of us. He said, "There are other churches that have missionary work, health guidelines, believe the bible to be the word of God, that offer humanitarian care and are good people. But because of the prophet Joseph Smith, we have been set apart, and have a great responsibility to share this message and glad tidings and great joy to the world." I had never really considered that, so just thought I would share.

What else happened this week? Oh the first lady of Hondurus came to visit the MTC. And she came to our classroom! She just happened to come to our floor and was observing our learning process and what exactly we are doing here. It was funny wrote all these spanish words on the board and acted like we were super instensly learning... in really we weren't. But since this church is the biggest comsumers of visas to her country, like we are in most countries, and since we send missionaries there and this is where they are trained, she decided to come check us out. So that was neat. But we couldn't take pictures with her or anything and she had some HUGE body guard with her, so I didn't try to sneak some. We even hung up a Honduras flag in our room just for her, even though none of us are going there ha.

My favorite scripture of the week Isaiah 61:1-3  1 The ^aSpirit of the Lord ^bGod is upon me; because the Lord hath ^canointed me to ^dpreach ^egood tidings unto the ^fmeek; he hath sent me to ^gbind up the brokenhearted, to ^hproclaim ⁱliberty to the ^jcaptives, and the opening of the ^kprison to them that are bound;
 2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of ^avengeance of our God; to ^bcomfort all that ^cmourn;
 3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them ^abeauty for ashes, the oil of ^bjoy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called ^ctrees of ^drighteousness, the ^eplanting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.
I love it because verse 1 & 2 is what I am doing here as a missionary. Preaching good tidings, binding the brokenhearted, proclaiming liberty to those captive in sin and sorrow, comforting those that mourn... But verse 3 is to the members of the church. Beauty for ashes means the Lord takes every crash and burn experience that we have and turns them into blessings. The 'oil' (think of the temple) of joy for mourning, that as we partake in the ordinances we will be filled with joy and as we wear the garment our heavy burdens will be made light through the spirit. That we may bear forth the righteous fruit from our branches...
Just a little something our branch president taught us this week.
Well that's about all the time I have this week! I typed pretty slow. But family, I love you dearly and hope you are all doing well in school and waking up on time to class. Ryan and Leesh, I am glad you finally found a dog beach for Calvin and just so you know I went to yoga class this morning in rememberance of you.... Dad, hope you're still not sleeping on the tramp cause it's getting a little too cold for that. Maybe mom will let you back in. Mom, the young women are so luck to have you as their leader!!! And I am so blessed to have to as my mother. Thanks for breastfeeding me. You are the best! I always think of that as I teach the gospel, milk before meat. You taught me and right way fromt he get go haha. Okay, I'm done.
The church is true. That's all I can ever say anymore.
CON MUCHO AMOR, BESOS, BRAZOS Y EL ESPIRITU
Hermana Marshall