June 3, 2013, Plainfield

Spam and Eggs

Can't think... I spent the last 30 minutes looking at old photos because some other Elders wanted to see pictures of the family. So I searched through all the messages I've received in the past year from Dad, through all the photos he sent me. Fortunately there's one of every member of the family.

So there are a few items of business to discuss:

1. Elder Sailsbery got his visa and left to Peru 3 weeks ago. So WE (Elders Leon, Whitton, and I) have been in a trio for the past 3 weeks. It's been good. We got 31 lessons last week so the work is going smoothly, apart from a couple things.

2. I think I might be leaving Plainfield next transfer (1 week). But we'll see what happens. Life in Plainfield has consistently been amazing for the 3 months that I've been here. All the people I've met have become some of my best friends ever. 

3. Our less-active member Jose Mercado (chunky Salvadorian guy that speaks the messiest Spanglish ever) has been giving us tons of rides lately AND taking us out to eat. On Saturday he took us to his "tia's" house (aunt) to eat pupusas. Oh mah goodness. The best pupusas I've ever had. This lady, Maria, cooks straight out of her kitchen and sells pupsuas, quesadillas, tacos, and other incredible Salvodorian food on Saturdays and Sundays. We went and it's just a little kitchen and a huge table in the dining room where people come and eat and she's just constantly cooking, chatting in Spanish, and wiping her sweaty children's faces with her apron corner. It's a wonderful, HOT home. AND there's unlimited drinks. You can just keep ordering and she just keeps throwing food in the pan and serving up old bottled Coca Cola. It's amazing. 

4. We also stopped at a thrift store while waiting for Jose to pick us up and they were having a sale on records so I bought 6 records; including Lizst, Schubert, and then Frank Sinatra, West Side Story, and Bryan Adams. (MOM! Bryan Adams totally reminds me of you.. remember how you had that greatest hits CD that I listened to like a thousand times when I was little with "Cuts Like A Knife", "Straight From The Heart", and "Summer of '69"?)

Anyway, those last two weren't really items of business, but it was something fun that happened.

Bryan and Jasmine were doing so goood... and then they asked their parents for permission to get baptized and they said NO. I was super bummed because Bryan wants it really bad. He has told us multiple times that he knows he needs to be baptized and that through prayer and study since we've been coming over, (about a month and a half), he's learned more than he has in his entire life, and I quote... "Before when I was baptized Catholic and stuff i didn't even care about religion and God and stuff, but now I see how important it is. Like, our salvation depends on it." He's the man. He says he's going to have to wait until he turns 18 (about 20 months) and we silently said NO. There has to be another way. So we're going to start meeting with his parents separately (they're divorced) and really hope the spirit touches them. I love Bryan and Jasmine like my brother and sister. I KNOW they'll be baptized but I also know that Lucifer is going to work on them. I pray that future missionaries will keep up with them and continue to testify to them of the doctrine of Christ.

Oh man. I was just thinking about the lovely fact that NOW all my friends are starting to go on missions.

(old) Tucker Sanders: West Virginia

Me: Jersey

Lydia: Mississippi

Bekah: Honduras

Gemma: California

Tanner: Chile

Jaezo: California

Kent: Michigan

I love missionary work. I was studying the other in Hebrews 11 the other day about faith. Man I think I wept like a babe when I read the scriptures relating to Abraham and Adam and Abel and Enoch. It talks about how through their faith, the Lord kept that particular covenant of OBEDIENCE to them. "These all died in faith, not having received the ^apromises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were ^bstrangers and pilgrims on the earth.     "  

I love that scripture. 

It makes me think of the Thrice song "In Exile" which is probably not missionary appropriate (good thing I'm not listening to it) and how it talks about all of us being exiled here on earth, how we must pass through this journey, and how we WILL make it home, where we belong with our loving Father in Heaven.

I realize that my emails have been lacking in spirituality lately. So there you go. Jesus Christ lives. God is our Eternal Father. LISTEN to the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit of Promise. The Lord's work is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

EC