¡Hola Todos!
This was a fairly crazy week, but it turned out good for me in the end. I had divisions scheduled with the zone leaders starting on Tuesday night. My comp made the 3-hour trip down to the zl's area and one of the zone leaders came up here. We got lots done Tuesday afternoon, but when he woke up Wednesday morning, he started feeling headaches and a little bit of stomach-achyness. He felt pretty bad all day long too--good thing we didn't have an intense day planned. He had planned to stay until my district meeting on Thursday morning, and then return to his area, but all Wednesday night/Thursday morning, he had diarrhea and was vomitting! So I cancelled the 2 appointments I had in the morning to let him rest. He almost didn't make it to the meeting, but he was there and gave a quick little lesson with mine, followed by a rush to the bathroom again (just diarrhea at that point). After analyzing the situation, he knew he wouldn't be able to make it to his area without needing a bathroom again (he was given antibiotic that didn't allow him to take diarrhea meds), so we let him rest all day Thursday, meaning that we had to work crazy switch-offs with the other 4 Tartagal elders to get to all the appointments in our 3 areas! We got it to work though. He felt a little better Friday morning, so we gave the trip back a try, so I finally got my comp back Friday afternoon. He's feeling a whole lot better now, but man, that was a crazy midweek event!
I can't remember the last time that Sunday felt like a Day of Rest--this last Sunday was definitely not an exception. I worry too much about the investigators, but at the same time, the members here are sometimes pretty crazy in comparison to how things should be in the church! Unfortunately I can't really make comments, it's just up to the leaders to figure things out.
I had a cool inspirational moment the other day. I was thinking about the gospel of Jesus Christ with my comp and reading a little section in Preach my Gospel, when a cool way to explain the gospel popped into my head. It's kinda long, but I liked it a lot. The main points of the gospel are faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and persevering (I like the Spanish "persevering" better than the English "enduring") to the end (see Article of Faith #4). We normally picture the 5 points in a timeline, but in reality, it's also like a circle. We start out by showing faith in Jesus Christ and his teachings (faith is a trust in something isn't seen, but is true). Our faith makes us feel the need to change our lives so that we live in harmony with his teachings--that change is called repentance. When we repent, we make a covenant with Heavenly Father that we won't digress after repentance, rather progress afterward. Covenants are made through sacred acts called ordinances (a few examples are baptism, partaking of the sacrament, receiving the Priesthood, as well as the ordinances in the temple). After making a covenant with Heavenly Father, He always promises that the Holy Ghost will be with us to guide us. Well, the first time we enter the circle, the covenant we make is baptism. Once we're baptized, we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. If we follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost, we will realize that we need to prepare ourselves to renew that covenant by taking the sacrament every week, therefore entering into the circle again: exercise faith, repent, covenant (sacrament in this case), and we receive more guidance from the Spirit. We continue going around and around and around in this circle until one day, we're prepared to make other covenants, which gives us even more momentum in this gospel circle. As we hit more times going around the circle, we get closer and closer to Heavenly Father, kindof like a tornado going upward. You can try and disprove it, but it's so logical: you can't have the Holy Ghost unless you make covenants, you can't make covenants unless you repent first, you can't repent unless you believe and trust that it's possible (faith), and you can't have faith in something that the spirit doesn't testify of. So, in a sense, the gospel is eternal, because you can always make another turn around the track and come closer to Heavenly Father--that's how enduring to the end comes into play.
There might be flaws in how it's worded, but I think it's totally true. If it's confusing, I'm sorry. President Northcutt has us exposed to pretty deep stuff every once in awhile. Just study the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon--the principles are all over the place.
Well, I've gotta run.
Love you guys!
-Elder Powell-
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