Dear Family,
Today is my cúmplemes (7 month anniversary in the mission) and Valentines Day. I intend to celebrate by ordering icecream. Hna. Duarte and I will also be teaching a Family Home Evening lesson on unity and love in the family to a family of recent converts. I´m planning to use the classic "one stick breaks easily, many sticks together don´t" example to explain the importance of unity. This family consists of two stressed grandparents and four grandkids they are raising because their mother is in prison and their father is uninterested. The poor kids are having trouble adjusting to having grandparents who parent them instead of spoil them, not to mention the emotional trauma of having a mother in prison. So I think a lesson in unity and love will help them. It seems like a very appropriate way to celebrate Valentine´s day.
Yesterday was kind of a tough day at first. We passed by the houses of four investigators to walk with them to church and none of them answered or were home. Only one of our investigators, one of the Soledades, showed up to church. But the gospel principles class taught by Hermanas Daniels and Scanlon cheered me up. It was on prayer and the new members and one of the hermana´s investigators shared some really need experiences about feeling the Spirit through prayer. The talks in sacrament meeting were also good. Then we got to have lunch with two of my favorite members, Maxi and Paula Miguez. They are the very funny young couple expecting a baby who rescued us from the heat wave a couple weeks ago. After lunch we visited Rocío and Brisa, who are going to get baptized on Saturday morning. They were sorry they didn´t come to church and were really excited to see us. They are excited for their baptism too. I can´t wait to see them get baptized. It´s been too long since I had an investigator get baptized.
In the evening, Maxi came with us to help us teach MaríaLuz (the 16 year old pregnant one) and her boyfriend Lionel (19). We read scriptures from the bible about the importance of marriage. MaríaLuz wants to get married, but Lionel doesn´t. He says he wants to change his life and get baptized, but doesn´t want to have to get married to do it. He has a variety of excuses: "what if we get married and then I can´t provide for my family?" (he already has the responsibility to provide for them) "MaríaLuz is too young" (19 year old Mr. Maturity should have thought about that 1 1/2 babies ago). Lame sauce. What we tried to explain is that he is already living the life of a married person with MaríaLuz-- the only thing that will change is that he will have the paperwork that makes it official. . .and the blessings of God to help his marriage work out. It is kind of appalling to think of 16 year old MaríaLuz getting married, but it´s also appalling to see her with a 1 year old child and three months pregnant. The time to be appalled was when she and Lionel first considered having a relationship. At this point, marriage can only make things better. Fortunately, I believe Lionel really is good on the inside because he agreed to pray with MaríaLuz about whether or not they should get married. I hope he was open enough to receive and accept an answer.
In happier news, Mario and Celeste and Jasmín and Belén are going to get baptized Saturday afternoon and I get to go! I am so excited to see them and finally watch them get baptized. They are such an amazing family!
Well, got to go! I love you and I miss you! I hope everything keeps going well at home!
Love,
Ellis
The story of that family is rwally touching and I think some lessons could help them get back on their feet. When I travelled to Argentina on my mission, I was sent to some furnished apartments in buenos aires to visit families who had had social and economical problems. I believe my teaching impacted on them in a positive way!
ReplyDeleteJules