Monday, February 10, 2014

Week 27: I love this work

I just have to start by telling you that I shook Elder Oaks hand on Saturday. Yep. I can probably stop right there because that's the coolest thing that happened this week. ;) But I'll write a little more just to be nice. 

This week was a lot better than the last! Probably due to the fact that I didn't feel like my stomach was going to explode. It's a lot easier to work when you don't feel super sick, that's the last time I'll except street tacos from someone. 

We're still haven't a bit of trouble with our investigators keeping their commitments... Yesterday we didn't have any investigators in church again. It's does get really tiring when people just don't progress. It's just sad to see them have struggles and trials and wonder why, but not make the effort to recieve the blessings. In the conference with Elder Oaks he talked a lot about church attendance. Right now in Mexico is about 1/4 of the members are active, and it's been like that for a long time. It doesn't go up or down, it just sits there at 1/4th. This really is the hardest thing in joining the church for the Mexican people, they just aren't used to attending church every Sunday. It brought me to reflect on my childhood and I'm very grateful to have been raised in a family where going to church and partaking of the sacrement is so important. Even when we went of vacations we always rested on Sunday and went to church. I may not have understood why it was so important when I was younger, but now as a missionary I can really see the difference it makes in someones life when they  come to church every week. 

If you read in 3 Nephi 18 it's when Christ taught the people how to do the sacrement ordenance. In verse 7 it says "And this shall ye do in aremembrance of my bbody, which I have shown unto you. And it shall be a testimony unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you."  When we partake of the sacrement we are doing it in rememberance of Him and there's a promise in this verse that if we remember him we will always have his spirit. Elder Oaks said in the conference that anyone that wants to follow the teachings of the Savior must have the spirit in order to do so. If we do not go to church and partake of the sacrement, we will not have the spirit with us and we will not be able to follow in his footsteps. When we partake of the sacrement we establish ourselves on the rock of our Savior and when the winds of the world come beating against us we will not fall. If only more people here understood this. 

I love this work and what a great opportunity I have now to dedicate 100% of my time to the Lord! It's hard work and it is difficult at times, but the things I have learned and the testimony I have gained I wouldn't trade for the world! 

Love Elder Twede

This is just one of the patios where we are washing our cloths today. I thought I'd take a quick picture to just show what most houses are like. This one is actually really nice! Most are a bit scary looking. 

A typical Mexican meal. Rice. Beans. Spagetti and hot dog tacos... provecho! 

These things are everywhere! people ride them down the streets selling things.

Here's Mexican construction for ya. The road is starting to have huge sink holes, so they put these bars in to stop cars from driving on it. But they put them too far apart without measuring so the cars still drove through. Now they just have bags of rocks to do the job.  I'm actually sitting in that building right behind that parked car right now emailing! 

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