Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Letter #69 - January 10, 2011

Dear Family,

Thanks for the emails this week. I'm grateful to have such an amazing family. Happy Birthday to Grandma Donna!!! I'm glad you all got to get together and celebrate and enjoy each other's company. I'm looking forward to more days like that in a few months. I think that Paige needs to follow the tradition and name the baby Ada Louise. It seems like a pretty great pattern to me.

This week I have more to tell you about than I have time. Sad story.. The highlights are that after a lot of hard work and patience, we achieved a bishopric meeting and consequently a great ward council meeting. The organizations haven't been really functioning for a little while now and it's time to get the ward up and running again. It's a little bit amazing to me to think of how the church runs like an oiled machine in my home ward and how I have taken that for granted all my life. Here, it is a battle to get the members to have their meetings, and basically take care of each other and work in unity. I've been working a lot with the leaders and I have high hopes that we can make some lasting changes. Really it starts with a vision. Each leader needs to have a vision of what they want their ward or organization to look like, then they can set the right goals and make the necessary plans to accomplish those goals. And on top of it all, they need to have a personal commitment to their plan and the diligence (and patience) to follow up and keep going when the run up against problems, because the problems are many.

We are teaching a wonderful family, the family Roque (Sunilda and Juan) and they are progressing really well. They came to the activity we had on Sunday where we showed the film The Testaments and Juan was crying at the end. He said what a powerful film it was and how it had really touched his heart. I'm just hoping his divorce can go through quickly so that they can be baptized this month. We found a couple of new families this week and I'm excited to go to the appointments and get to know them and help them start progressing.

I'm just in awe of how truly white the field is. There is only one road to Corinto from the closest city of Chinandega and it's a beautiful and inspiring drive. Along both sides of the road, there are sugar cane fields and right now, the grass is high with the white heads of grain blowing in the wind. When the sun streams through in the early morning on the way to district meetings or in the evening as the sun is setting, it nearly brings tears to my eyes to have such a beautiful physical representation of the marvellous work of the Lord. And those who serve in this great work are laying up salvation to their own souls. The Lord brought me here to give me the chance to save my own soul, an amazing opportunity to save my own life and to change in ways that I wouldn't have been able to otherwise. I can't express my gratitude for that gift and for the infinite and eternal gift of the atonement that makes salvation possible.

Being a missionary is the best thing in the world - la sembra es nuestra, pero la cosecha es de Él.

Love,

Hna. Crosland

No comments: