This week has been absolutely crazy! I know that after I sent my last
email everything sounded all happy go lucky, and it was! But right
after that... maybe 30 minutes or so, I got really upset. I would like
to share that experience with you, because it´s as real as missionary
work gets.
This is a quote from my journal on May 2nd 2011 "We went to the
equivalent of Wal-Mat and I had a break down. I went and started
talking to Colton (Elder Llewelyn/my cousin) and just started crying.
Missionary work is hard. I just realized that 2 years is a long time
to be away from home, and I've only been gone for about 2 months. I´ve
only covered 1/12 of my mission. I also miss my family, a lot. In a
letter I wrote to a friend yesterday I said, 'I would love a hug from
my mom. And sometimes I just feel like I'm not cut out for missionary
work, or that I'm inadequate. But Colton said something to me that
helped. He related something his MTC teacher told him. 'Is Christ
still suffering? No. Christ only suffered for a little bit and then He
was raised to glory and He is no longer suffering.' From that I
realized 2 things. 1) I am going to suffer/struggle/sacrifice for a
little bit on my mission, but it won't be all the time and it won't
last my whole mission. 2) Christ suffered for me. In the Atonement He
felt exactly what I was feeling. He knows perfectly how I feel, how to
ehlp me, and how I can find the strength to carry on (See Alma 7:11-12
and Mosiah 14:3-5). As hard and challenging as this work is, and no
matter how much I may want to give up, I can go on, I will go on. Like
the Sons of Helaman, I have been taught by my mother; taught to
believe in the Lord, my God. Óur mother´s always taught us we should
never doubt. If we are true and faithful we will conquer now. Our God
will fight beside us, He will help us win. Our mothers always knew it,
we shall all come hom again.' Our Mothers Always Taught Us - Kory
Kunz"
I'm better now! On Tuesday we went and started teaching an
investigator named Santos. He is 78 years old and is very
excited/ready to be baptized. He knows a LOT about the gospel, we just
have to teach him a few more things. We also found a 7th Day Adventist
missionary later that day and that was very interesting. He said he
would be willing to listen to us and as long as we would listen to
him, but he didn't listen to us at all. So that was slightly annoying
and we is unwilling to accept that the Book of Mormon could be the
word of God. So we spent about 30 minutes "talking" to him even though
we were really just trying to ask him if he knew where an address was.
That was interesting. I also got a very strong spiritual impression
NOT to go into an area where we had several appointments and thus, we
did not go there. Who knows what could have happened, I just know what
did happen because we didn't go up there.
May 5th marked 10 weeks in the mission, as well as the day after my
Dad's birthday so, Happy Birthday dad 5 days ago from today. On
Thursday we had interviews with President Torres which was just dandy,
except when I broke down again. But things are all better now so don't
you worry about it! I was just preoccupied with life back home and how
long a mission is but life is good and the work is true!
I had two very interesting experiences with prayer recently. I may
have already said the one with Jose, but I think it was the Saturday
or Sunday before last Pday we stopped by Mario and Jose was drunk. We
asked Mario to pray at the end of the lesson and it was awesome,
except for Jose adding his "Amen"s "Please, Lord, Jesus" and stuff
like that. But right after Mario said Amen, Jose decided to start
praying. It was the most... interesting... prayer I have ever heard in
my life. He speaks English and Spanish and he just want back and forth
between the two really randomly and talked about Egypt, Pharoah,
splashing blood and the doors, and who knows what else. It was just
crazy. Then on Friday, the 6th, I had another great experience with
prayer. At the end of a lesson with our investigator, I gave the
prayer and this lady started saying her own prayer during mine. I
understand when people throw in "Hallelujah"s and "Amen"s etc, but she
just said a whole different prayer and so by the time I ended, she
just kept going until she was done. It was interesting.
My phone call back home to my family on Sunday was absolutely
fantastic! We went to church, and then pretty much the rest of the day
was spent studying. We went out for an hour to try to go to an
appointment, but it fell through and so did all of our back up plans.
Anyways, it was really nice to hear the voices of my family members!
Ellianna is way big and talking like crazy! I'm glad that she knows
I'm on a mission and prays for me on a daily basis. (Bytheway, thank
you to everyone who prays for me, no matter how often or not often, I
appreciate the prayers, as well as those for all missionaries). Alexis
misses me a lot, and I really do love and miss her too. And obviously
my parents are great and it was great to talk to them and hear about
life back home! (Spencer, Tom, Emily, you are not forgotten, I enjoyed
all of our conversations, but not necessarily anything to write home
about and put on the blog...) While I was writing in my journal last
night, I had an incredible feeling come over me that erased the pain I
felt earlier in the week (Monday and Thursday.. I know my Heavenly
Father. I may have not seen His face, per say, but I know who He is
and that He Loves me. I had a feeling of calm, peace, serenity, like
everything is going to be okay. Life is good in Guatemala! Pray for
the work! Hopefully we will have a baptism on Saturday for Santos
Chipix. As of right now we don't know who will be doing the baptism,
but Elder Nelson insists that somehow it will end up being me. I'm not
complaining.
Elder LaPray
P.S. If you feel the strong desire to send me a hand-written letter
the address to use is as follows, not the previously mentioned one
Elder Andrew LaPray
Misión Guatemala Ciudad Norte
Apartado #951-A
Guatemala, Guatemala
C.A.
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