¡Hola! ¿Que onda?
This last week finished up another transfer here in Avellaneda. A transfer is a six week period that at the end has some sort of change usually, either companion or area of proselyting. This time though nothing changes for me! Same companion and same area! I will start and finish my area in the exact same word, in the exact same city of Avellaneda, Buenos Aires, Argentina. My mission is coming full circle....weird.
This last week I was able to finish the Book of Mormon in Castellano for the first time. It was an amazing experience that brought so much light into my life. That book has a singular power to change human nature from the natural man to a child of God. If we follow the precepts found therein we will grow closer to God and come to understand more and more how to utilize the infinite sacrifice of His son, Jesus Christ, in our lives. We will be molded and changed into the kind of person He wants us to be. Someone that far outreaches our hopes and dreams. I've come to adopt this motto in my mission. "B the best you can be. Elevate yourself to the level of your potential." I have seen so many changes and miracles in my life as I have taken this slogan to heart and worked to elevate myself. Live on a higher plane of virtue and purity of heart and mind. I feel more humble, more meek, and more prepared to take on the world as it continues to spin around me. God qualifies us to meet the tasks and challenges of our lives if we depend on him. I saw that in a very simple way this last week.
There is a couple we are teaching by the names of Miriam and Francisco. They live behind a polluted swamp tin house with cardboard thin walls and a roof with more holes than a cheese grater. They are the most humble people I hav perhaps ever met in the worlds eyes. They struggle to maintain their hope for good things to come. We challenged them to do a simple exercise. We promised them, that if they would read the scriptures and pray everyday, and then at night come together and write down a miracle they saw in that day, that God would bless them with the things that they most desperately needed. These promises we extended didn't come from us though. In the Book of Mormon in Mosiah 2:41 it says:
And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and ahappy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are bblessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out cfaithful to the end they are received into dheaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it.
They took to heart what we had told them to do. On Sunday we saw them at church. Miriam approached us with a smile on her face and said "Elders. My husband and I are doing as you've said. I can't say God has rained down money or a new house on us, but I can say that I have found new work and that I have a new optimism from seeing the blessings the Lord has given me everyday." I know it may not seem like much to you but in the life of this woman she recognized the simple truth, that the more we recognize the blessings of God in our life and the more we show Him we value these blessings, the more He blesses us. Good things are yet to come for those that wait upon the Lord. I wish you all could see and feel what I have felt. Perhaps then you could understand how much this simple story means to me. God is there. He listens. And he is waiting to pour out blessings upon us until we have not room to receive them.
I love you all so much. Thank you for all your support. See you all before you know it!
Love,
Elder Anderson
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