June 7, 2010
Dear Family,
I loved the pictures of all of you on the beach. It looked beautiful, but cold and I don´t like cold right now. Every time we greet someone they tell me my hands are freezing. Then I have to explain that is just the way they are. Thanks for the Celtics updates! Go Celtics!
Yesterday we visited the Primary and talked for a few minutes about the Holy Ghost. I really like a talk that Sister Matsumori gave in the October conference about helping others to understand the Holy Ghost. She said that we have to explain the doctrine, bear testimony, and cultivate an environment in which we can feel the Spirit. She talked about a Primary teacher that brought blankets to her class and wrapped each kid in a blanket and then asked them how they felt and explained that this is how it feels when we feel the Spirit. I tried to help the kids imagine this, imagine that it was raining and really cold outside and they we were inside with our coats all toasty warm. Then we talked about how that situation would feel, the kids were really smart and they had lots of answers. I loved returning to the Primary to teach for a little bit; I hope I have a calling there again in the future.
Like this Primary teacher in the story it is important to relate doctrine or gospel ideas to everyday things. There are types and shadows in every aspect of our lives. For example to understand how Heavenly Father loves us we can examine how our parents love us. They created us, gave us all our temporal needs, provide a future for us so that we can keep progressing. It is the same with Heavenly Father, he created our spirits, provided us with the earth, and has a plan so that we can keep progressing. So if we have a question about church doctrine we should look for an example in our everyday life and if we are looking for help with our everyday lives we should look for an example in Heavenly Father´s life, in the eternal life. It works I promise and it has helped me so much in my studies.
We were also asked to speak with the Laurels about our decisions to come on a mission and how we prepared. It was pretty special to be able to testify about the mission. To try and analyze what the mission is and help other girls to see what the mission really is. That is something that I didn´t understand before the mission, I wish that I would have had more contact with missionaries in my teenage years. Here the youth look up to the missionaries, they eat with us, they work with us and they see missionary work first hand. So everyone that is reading this, find out who the missionaries in your area are and help them, it will bless your lives so much.
I love 1 Juan 4-5 and how it talks about the nature of love. We are commanded to love one another and to love God. From Mosiah 2:17 we learn that when we serve our fellowmen we are only in the service of God. It is a commandment from God to love others and serve them and I know that if we pray for opportunities we will receive them and we will be happy. After lunch Saturday we ironed clothes for an Hermana that sells second hands clothes. She goes and buys a carton full of clothes from the United States and then irons it all and sells it. Well, she is a little bit sick right now. She has problems with her heart and it really wears her out to iron. And I actually love ironing so I offered to iron after eating lunch with her. It was fun, we ironed and talked.
Segunda and her family didn´t come to church yesterday. We always stand by the door and greet people as they get to church and when we saw David coming without his family it killed me. We talked to David about his mom after church and he told us that his mom had gone to the Catholic church in the morning and then went to meet up with a friend that is leaving for Peru. So we stopped by yesterday afternoon. We were pretty sad and didn´t feel the Spirit too much when we got there, so I told H Dinsdale to choose a long hymn that she likes a lot so that we could get the Spirit with us before starting to teach. We sang Abide with Me Tis Eventide and then prayed. Segunda could see that we were pretty sad and she asked what was wrong. We told her that it was because she didn´t go to church and she told us not to cry for her because that is what Christ said to the women that were crying when he passed by them with his cross. I pulled that scripture out and we read it and it was actually something I had read that week in Jesus the Christ. We learned that he asked them to cry for themselves, for their welfare. We told Segunda that we were sad because we were worried about her welfare. Then we asked her if she had gone to another church that morning, she answered, “Yes.” And we began to talk about why she is Catholic. It is because her parents were Catholic. We talked about baptism and how it wasn´t her decision to be baptized; it was the decision that her parents made. We told her that we know that she is most concerned about following Christ and read about Christ´s baptism. We asked her how they baptized her and compared it with the baptism of Christ. She stopped after reading and said, “You are right.” The Catholic church doesn´t follow Christ´s example. Then H Dinsdale shared a bunch of scriptures about authority from the Bible. They were scriptures from a study that Ben did about authority, the apostasy, and the restoration, that I gave to H Dinsdale to study. Segunda realized that the authority has to be received by the laying on of hands and that she really needs to find out which church has the authority. We read 1 Nephi 14:10 and after reading about the two churches she said, “I have to find the church of Christ.” The lesson was so Spiritual and culminated with H Dinsdale´s testimony. I had tears in my eyes as I expressed our love for Segunda and told her that we want her to find the truth. Then we got on our knees and she offered the closing prayer, asking to know if our church is true. It was the best lesson of my mission and it was the best because we completely followed the Spirit. Now we will be helping her to feel her answer by praying and reading in the Book of Mormon.
This is the true church. And we have to know that. Not follow it for tradition. We have to question it, we have to receive confirmation from the Spirit that it is the true church. It is so important.
When we left the lesson, H Dinsdale said, “I want to hug your brother one day for sending you those scriptures.” Heavenly Father is looking out for us, he inspired my brother to study and send us those scriptures.
I feel like this was a good letter. I hope you felt the Spirit while reading it and that it changes something in your day. I hope that you smile a little more. I hope that you do things to find the Spirit. I hope that you pray for opportunities to serve. I hope that you feel loved by your Heavenly Father.
Ich liebe dich Mom! Yesterday I ate lunch with a German. He is from Frankfurt and it is interesting to listen to Spanish with a German accent. There are quite a few Germans in Chile and so the grocery stores sell German things. The other day I found some of those cookies that I always saw you buy in Albertson´s. The two cookies with a chocolate cream in the middle. I bought them because I wanted to be like you.
The gospel is beautiful and makes me happy.
Love,
Hermana Arnold
P.S. Next week I will write about the secrets to finding happiness. I have truly found out how to be happy.
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