its good to see your emails and feel the love. we are writing late today because we went to the templo de trujillo. it was a different experience for me, i really loved it. It was good to have Elder Gavidia there too, his first time in the trujillo temple. he´s doing great. still eating like a horse and sweating like one too. haha.
Ive been honestly having a lot of difficulties out here on a personal level. I wont go into details but it has to do with health and anxiety. Going to the temple though and searching the scriptures for alivio has helped me too. in our area of chanquin we are still fighting the battle. hard time to see people progress but we are trying our best with patience and love. we have been visiting a certain family ever since I got here to the area, and they started from basically ground zero on a relationship level. the parents are members, active, but all their kids had fallen away due to some hard times in the family and misunderstanding. one of their boys, who is only 19, had been living with his girlfriend in the house and now she is expecting a baby. they are so young. they are my age. we have been teaching them, so much. at first jon wanted nothing to do with us, but after visiting his parents and his girlfriend so many times, and inviting him to listen. he began listening to us. then the rest of his brothers, and his sister. now we are having family nights with the whole family, playing games, teaching small gospel messages, and seeing their ashes of their faith incite again. it has been a tender mercy for me to see this small but slow progress. the parents now are planning to get sealed. we hung up a family proclamation in their house, and now they are so excited to see and converse with us. Jon and his girlfriend now have plans to get married before the baby is born and we are happy for that plan. i know that keeping the commandments of God helps us to be happy, even though they are not popular to do so and sometimes a little begrudging.
to end I wanted to share a quote from a talk i read last night that helped me.
[In the Bible we read of Christ’s visit to the home of Simon the Pharisee.
Outwardly, Simon seemed to be a good and upright man. He regularly checked off his to-do list of religious obligations: he kept the law, paid his tithing, observed the Sabbath, prayed daily, and went to the synagogue.
But while Jesus was with Simon, a woman approached, washed the Savior’s feet with her tears, and anointed His feet with fine oil.
Simon was not pleased with this display of worship, for he knew that this woman was a sinner. Simon thought that if Jesus didn’t know this, He must not be a prophet or He would not have let the woman touch him.
Perceiving his thoughts, Jesus turned to Simon and asked a question. “There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: … one owed five hundred pence, … the other fifty.
“And when they [both] had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?”
Simon answered that it was the one who was forgiven the most.
Then Jesus taught a profound lesson: “Seest thou this woman? … Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.”24
Which of these two people are we most like?
Are we like Simon? Are we confident and comfortable in our good deeds, trusting in our own righteousness? Are we perhaps a little impatient with those who are not living up to our standards? Are we on autopilot, going through the motions, attending our meetings, yawning through Gospel Doctrine class, and perhaps checking our cell phones during sacrament service?
Or are we like this woman, who thought she was completely and hopelessly lost because of sin?
Do we love much?
Do we understand our indebtedness to Heavenly Father and plead with all our souls for the grace of God?
When we kneel to pray, is it to replay the greatest hits of our own righteousness, or is it to confess our faults, plead for God’s mercy, and shed tears of gratitude for the amazing plan of redemption?25¨)
love you guys. have a great week. im thinking of you.
elder caldwell
pics: temple, sunset as always, and the family i was talking about. la familia castillo rojas.
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