¡Hola mi familia y mis amigos! Ojala que están bien y que sientan amor y paz en sus vidas. Este semana fue super bueno y estoy muy agradecido por todo que yo aprendí. I have had some really good stories that I want to share with you guys this week!
This morning was a really good one haha. I started the day out with good intentions, and decided that I was going to make pancakes for my companion and I to have for breakfast. Everything went along smoothly and the pancakes looked very delicious. Unfotunatley as I took the first bite of my pancake, it bacame clear I had done something very wrong. It turns out that the jar of what I had thought to be sugar, actually turned out to be salt and the pancakes were not near as delicious as they could have been. Always know the ingredients for whatever thing you a cooking, building, or doing in your life, that`s the lesson I learned from this experience. But my companion and I got a really good laugh out of it!!
For anyone who is concerned about the volcano, it`s not anywhere near where I am at so don`t worry. But keep the people that have been severely effected by it in your prayers becaue there are many. Chile has become a crazy country recently haha they have tons of earthquakes, there was a flood in the north part of Chile a few weeks ago, and they have thousands of volcanoes all along the mountain range in the country. And before the last seven years or so it`s was fairly peaceful here. But now I guess that seven more of these volcanoes are active and causing some people to worry throughout the country. Really the most likely thing to happen to me here is to expereince a bad earthquake, and some of the older people here are predicting there to be one within the next year, but time will tell and the Lord will decide.
We have had some super awesome lessons this week. We are now teaching a family of two adaults who are not married, and the mother has two childen in their teenage years. The daughter, who is fifteen, does not believe that God exists because of all the terrible things that happen in the world today. I wish I could remember exactly what I and my companion said to her because it was definitley guidance of the Spirit, but basically we taught her: God is not the cause of evil in the world today, Satan is. There are many people who misuse their personally agency to make terrible decisions that can destroy other people`s lives, but God does not cause this. Each of us has our own agency, or ability to choose bad or good, and there are people who make horrible and terrifying decisions. Does God cause this? No. Does he allow it? Yes he does. But we also choose how we are going to respond to evil that passes. Will we just give up and say that life is nothing other than time spent on the earth to suffer terrible difficulties with no purpose? Or will we put our faith in Christ, and trust that after this life we are going to rest from the troubles of the world and have the true happily ever after that we all desire? I personally ike the second choice much more, and I know that it`s something that all of us can have.
The second experience once again has to do with fear.It turns out all my studying about fear the last week came in handy, I know that I was truly guided to studying this so that I can conquer my own fear and help other conquer theirs as well. We were teaching an older woman who is scared for everything that she doesn`t know about, because her son is in the military. And she also doesn`t have much happiness lately because she feels lonely. I felt inspired to talk about how Jesus Christ felt when He was standing in front of an angry crowd that was yelling "Crucify Him" without a single friend by His side to help Him with all that He was suffering. I had never thought about this beforehand much myself, but now I do a lot. For Christ to have the courage to suffer all that He did in the Garden of Gethsemane until He died upon the cross and not have any fear seems unreal to me. Nobody has felt the suffrering that He felt, and nobody ever will. But depite all of His trials He did not lose courage, but rather he said to His Father "Not my will, but thine be done." Let us all learn from this, and try to have more courage in the face of our trials no matter how large or small they seem.
I pray for each of you, and I sincerely hope that you can feel the love of the Savior and our Heavenly Father in your lives.
With much love,
Elder Conger
