Well, this week was a really good week. And I'm trying to remember what all even happend this week, but I just remember it was a good week.
This week to be honest was a testimony of how we, as members of the Church of Jesus Chrost of Latter-day Saints, need to be aware of what a great treasure we have in our lives. People who really want this will sacrafice everythign to brign their lives into alignment with the priciples ofthe Gospel. They will do everything in their power, give up anything, make any kind of sacrafice to follow Christ and to partake in the ordinances that will let them have Celestial life. The Elders ihn our ward are teachign the wife of a recent convert, who before her husband's baptism couldn't attend church and didn0t really want to listen to the missionaries, but after seeing the change that really takes place when we repent and come unto Christ, the change that this gorspel brings people, she quit her job so that she could start coming to church.
This week we ran splits/intercambios (I don't know if that's actually the right word for it but it's when you just go for one day with a different companion to learn from the others) with the Sister Trainign Leaders, and as we were about to walk down a street a woman yelled at us from across the road. The street we were about to walk down, although it wasn't night, apparently was not a good street to walk down after about 5 at night. And of course, when someoen yells at you and it's not someone who's drunk attempting to use thier rudimentary english, you talk to them and their reference adn set an appoitnment to visit them. We went to the appoitnment, and about 5 or 10 minutes into the conversation with her and her mother, we found out that she was actually a member, baptized when she was about 8 and had been inactive since she had been a teenager.
And as we were talking to them, we offhandedly mentioned that they could be sealed togather as a family, whcih strcuk the attention of Hermana Luz, who asked what exactly that meant. Of course, this was followed by an explanation of the last half of the plan of salvation. That everyone has an opportunity to accept the gospel in the Spirit world after they die uin the tiem they wait there until the Second coming of Jesus Chrsit and they can be resurrected and brough back into the presecne of God to be judged. Thsi is what it means to be saved - to be brought back into his presence and to have someone there to say "I already paid for their sins, have mercy." and becasue Christ paid for us our sins, everyone is saved and will see their Havenly Father again. But living with God again in His presence? This is not Salvation, thsi is exaltation. And this is not so freely given. Thsi si the greatest gift God can give us and in this sense, there are thigns we must do to have this gift. We must have faith, repent, be baptized with proper authority, recieve the gift og the holy ghost by the laying on ofhand also by siomeone who has authority, and endure to the end, whcih signifies continually repeating this procces and then making the coventants necessary in the temple.
There in three kingdoms in which we can be exalted, the Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial. Telestrial is where people go who didn't really want to follow Christ and who didn't accept his gospel and didn't live honorable lives. Terrestrial is where people who rejected Christ and the truth of the Gospel here but accepted it in the spirit world go as well as people who lived honorable lives but didn't accept the Gospel. The Clestial kingdom is for those who accpeted the truth either here on earth or who accpeted it inthe spirit world becasue they didn't have a chance on Earth. Those who have made all the covenants necessary to dwell in the presence of God, and one of those covenants is to be sealed with your family which menas to bind your fmaily toagtehr not just for this life, but forever. The Celstial Kingdom is the only kingdom where there are families. The others don't have them. It's a sad truth. And I don't know about you but I can't imagine a heaven without my family with me.
And this strcuk a cord with Hermana Luz in the part fo her sould that is eternal and recoginzes this as a truth she already knew before this life. Adn although our lesson with her was Sturday and she had plans the next day, she told us right then and there that she would be at church the next day, no matter what. And she was there, just like she sadi she would be.
The point of this kind of long letter is that people are willing to make great sacrafices to cometo church, to learn the gospel, and/or to walk the path of Christ. Are we really treasuring it as much as we should be? How important is the gospel in our lives and how much are we willing to sacrafice for it? Some food for thout I guess. I've been askign myself this lately tryign to make sure I'm doing as much as I can to cherish the blessings I have been given in my life.
Con mi amor eterno,
Hermana Rawlings
Attached: Dairy Queen with the lovely Hermana Rubio
Also, is it daylight savings time? Because that's not a thing in this part of Mexico so I have no idea
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