Sorry I couldn't email yesterday, there was ice on the road and half of Odessa shut down. The people here are wimps! We saw like 7 crashes in just a few minutes of driving around...it wasn't even that bad!
We got to go to the temple this last week and it was so good! The youth had their scheduled baptism trip and the branch needed more Priesthood, so they got us to help them out. IT was the first time in a long time I had gone to do baptisms, but it was so good! I forgot how much I liked doing that. Only 2 youth showed up, the Velazquez boys. We got to drive up with them, it was fun to talk to them for the 2 hour trips. They talked about a lot of new movies and games and technology and stuff...I felt like a lost little puppy. I don't know nothing! Anyway, at the temple Elder Gillette and I witnessed and helped on confirmations, it was nice. I felt the spirit pretty strong and I was just so amazed as how EASY it was to do all those baptisms! For the past 20 months I have been walking around the streets, knocking doors, learning spanish, teaching and planning all day long to get a few baptisms to happen and at the temple all we had to do was SHOW UP!! I have a lot greater understanding and appreciation of that vicarious missionary work after having seen the other side of it. Don't take the temple for granted! That's easy #s!
On Sunday night we ate dinner with the Pena family. They are a real cool family here in the branch, the mother is from Mexico, her husband is from Colombia and all their kids were born in the USA, I think. They are awesome. The best part, though, was that the invited a non-member family to eat with us!! THat was the first time that's happened to me on my mission! IT was so cool! The family they invited is so cool! An older couple with their 22 and 17 year old daughters. They were pumped that we spoke spanish and even more pumped that we weren't very good at spanish because they have been trying to learn english so for most of the night we talked spanish to each other. They have been friends of the Penas for a really long time so they know a lot about the church already. Then enjoyed their time eating with us and they felt the spirit during our spiritual thought about prophets. I sure hope we can teach them some more in the future!
One time, when I was like 7 or 8, I think, on Christmas eve all the family had come over to our house to do the traditional Christmas eve festivities. We, as usual, got to open one present. I remember that CJ opened her present first, from mom, and she had got a toy. I was so pumped to open my present after that. I opened it up and saw that I had gotten a shirt. I cried my eyes out. I was so bummed that I had gotten a shirt and CJ got a toy. I have often thought back to that day and I now feel really really bad about it!! I realized that me crying about that present I got from mom didn't make her feel very good. I'm sure she just brushed it off, but I know I still made her feel bad as my mother. Another experience I had like that was when Dad was helping me with my math homework in like 7th grade. I was frustrated because I couldn't figure out the Pythagorean theorem. Dad was trying his very best to help me out and I kinda made fun of the way he said the word Pythagorean, it was different than what they said at school. That didn't make Dad happy and he stopped helping me. At the time I was real bummed because I needed his help still, but now I'm bummed because I know I made Dad feel bad. "Elder Porter...you're a lunatic!" (that's a quote from brother Kelly) "what do these random stories have to do with your missionary work from this past week?!" Well let me tell ya! I was studying in the book of Moses this week. In the chapter I was reading God was teaching Enoch about all the things that were gonna happen with regards to Noah and the flood. When Enoch saw all the sin that was going on he noticed that God was weeping. Confused, Enoch asked God, why in the world he was weeping if He was the God of everything, how could he weep? God told him that He had givin Noah and all those people everything that they had....He created them, He gave them agency, He gave them life, He loved them...but He had to sit back and watch them sin, to watch them potentially be damned! He loved them so much that He weeped for them. I realized that that's probably how he feels about us a lot of the time. He is our God too, our Father, He's givin us everything, and we too are sinning. Yikes! I realized that if I could feel just as bad about making God feel bad and cry as I do about making my earth parents feel bad and cry I wouldn't make half the mistakes i've made in my life!!! I know that my parents love me so much! So I do every think I can to make them feel good and make them feel of my love for them. Likewise I know that Our Heavenly Father loves us so much. So we need to do every thing we can to make Him feel and know of our love. Just a thought!
Anyway...I love y'all so much! I hope you have a good week and enjoy your lives this week! Let me know if I can do anything for any of y'all.
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