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How's that for a disclaimer? Just a crazy mix and whirl of emotions and feelings and experiences and just everything. First off, I am fine, happy, and healthy. The subject has nothing to do with any of that, just lots of crazy experiences to share. Don't worry!
I can't talk a lot about Saturday since they were perosnal experiences involving other people that isn't really my place to share, but I heard some tough news and I didn't exactly know how to react. I knew it was all for the best and for a divine purpose, but nonetheless, difficult to accept. So that was basically Saturday. Get ready for an emotional 180.
I have shared this experience verbally several times and written once. I liked the way I expressed myself when I wrote it, then copied it in my journal, and now I am going to make a direct quote from my journal. It's a LONG excerpt.
"This day was an absolute miracle in my life. The best experience of my mission so far. Skipping over church and lunch, Elder Williams and I were out on divisions. We went to contact a place where we had never contacted before called Zapote. I wasn't expecting much success, but I knew the Lord needed us to be there. The first few houses were busts. So we went to a house with some noise. Nothing. So we went to the house next door.
"This 9 year old opened the door and I asked if his mom was home and if he would call her. He turned around and a woman came out and said,´Hi Elders, come in'. She came closer and said, 'Who sent you here?' Usually we say something like 'God' but I said, 'No one. We were just walking around knocking every door.' She continued, 'Really? No one sent you? I am a member of the church. I want you to give a blessing to my sister who was just diagnosed with cancer. I called missionaries the other day to comeon Sunday but they said they probably couldn't come. It is a miracle that you are here. God sent you'.
"I know Heavenly Father sent us to this woman. There is NO WAY we could have known, but we made that contacting plan days ago so that nothing would interfere. This woman desperately needed us, and we followed the Spirit and we were able to be the miracle Carla needed, and she was our miracle too.
"So the woman, Lourdis, let us in and we talked for a few minutes and she told her mom and sister (Carla) what a miracle it was that we were there. After talking for a few minutes we were invited to giveher a blessing and I was the one who sealed the annointing and pronounced the blessing.
"I always feel awkward giving blessings to people I don't know just because I feel like they expect me to tell them they will be healed. This blessing was different. I just called her by her name, 'Carla Lorena Mejia Martinez', sealed the annointing, and started to give a her a blessing. Sometimes as Priesthood holders we stumble or speak slowly in blessings. I feel it's because we're trying to follow the Spirit and prounounce the blessing that comes from our Heavenly Father. I can't say it was an eloquent blessing in which I said, 'Be thou healed', but I can say I blessed her according to the Spirit. What a beautiful experience.
"We then shared a small message about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It was honestly the most amazing miraculous experience I've had on my mission. Right now Carla is less-active, but her sister, Lourdis, said she, Carla, has been wanting to go back at least to Sacrament, and didn't know there was a chapel so close. Lourdis and her family are active members where they live in Canada, but she is going to be down here visiting her sister until December. What an amazing wonderful incredible experience to end the weekend and see the blessings the Lord has in store for us when we just continue to be obedient and follow the Spirit.
"There honestly aren't enough words to come close to describing the whole experience and how I felt. I felt as if everything that had ever happened before, any bad experience, none of it mattered because of of that one moment that so infinitely overpowers any experience that I know I at least fulfilled one little purpose God has for me in my mission. I want this experience to be engraved in my memory for the rest of my life. It was one of those moments in life where you realize that God exists and He knows each one of us individually and He loves us so much that he sends two young missionaries to be able to give a blessing to His daughter who is in desperate need of that blessigns and the love of her Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ."
That one experience makes the rest of the weeks experience sound lame, because there was one good one, and the rest were just not that great. But, like I said, this one experience so greatly overpowers any bad experience that it doesn't matter. So, I realize now, that the rest of the weeks experiences don't matter at all, and I'd rather not share them, just to keep the wonderful experience a wonderful experience, untainted. Kind of like a drumroll. The drumroll is always so exciting and a build up experience, but what it builds up to is always kind of... meh. I'm going to consider my Sunday experience as the drumroll. A moment that will forever be untainted. (Partially stolen idea from How I Met Your Mother, season 1, episode entitled "Drumroll, Please".)
Love,
Elder Andrew Anderson LaPray
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