1:17 AM
Dear Mom,
I loved what you said about last weeks email. "It's like
putting out a fire with gasoline" when you just think negatively. I
think I'm going to add that to my quote wall that my companion and I are
making when I get home tonight. It's true. And dad, whether or not you
like it or not, Jason and I are dragging you to that pool! Yeah, you get
toe-cramps, but that stuff goes away. Just means you have to eat more
bananas! Then Jason - word.
This week.
This week probably took a few years off of my life, added to future pimples on my face, or added many white hairs to my head.
When
you teach people as a missionary, if you're doing everything right,
it's inevitable that you just begin to love the people you teach. You
stop thinking about missionary work as a burden, but more as
a privilege. There is no greater joy in life then seeing how faith can
change the lives of people, even in the most humble situations.
Samantala - at the same time - Newton's laws still continue to weigh
pressure on our lives by ensuring us the equal and opposite reaction.
Some of the hardest times I've been through here in
the mission, are the times when people I am teaching are going through
difficult trials. The people you teach just become a part of you. You
suffer when they suffer, and you rejoice when they rejoice. It's almost
like a taste of knowing what our Heavenly Father goes through with us as
His children.
This week, it seemed like nearly every family we
have been teaching, including our recent convert, had gone through some
kind of extreme tragedy or crisis. From seeing the effects of having a
10 year-old kid run away from home and being gone for nearly a week now,
to learning of a family member of a recent convert having cancer, and
then seeing families fight right in front of your face - it's been
an emotionally tearing week for my companion and I. It even pushed us to
being torn apart as a companionship being under so much stress. The
days seemed long and the nights we slept seemed too short. It reached a
point where my companion and I began to take things out on each other.
Tears got mixed for the people we are teaching and a breaking
companionship. The additional rain seemed to be eternal. We seemed to
begin to forget what faith can do.
I was thinking this morning of what to write you
about while I was cleaning the house around 5:00am, when this song came
on that I attached. It's a song from the new EFY CD, about the power of
faith. As I sat down with my companion and really listened to this song,
it hit me that this song had been the theme of our week.
The song talks about how we all fall down sometimes.
We all ache. We all go through the dark clouds and have our hearts
broken. It's something we can relate to. Yet whatever the situation,
whatever mistake you make, although it seems like Satan has won for just
a second, if we will just have faith, then our Heavenly Father can take
whatever we have, however broken we are, and make the best out of what
we have. There isn't a mistake to big or a trial to tough that faith
can't conquer.
As the week ended and we stepped back, it was
difficult not to notice the miracles we had not seen behind the clouds
that seemed to cover them. We saw seven new people at church this week
and were blessed to find 21 new people to teach. We saw changes in each
other. And most importantly, change in our faith.
The song couldn't but it any better. This week I saw
dreams that moved mountains, hope that knew no end - even when the sky
was falling. I saw miracles just happen and silent prayers get answered.
I saw broken hearts get made brand new. It's amazing to know these are
the things that faith can truly do.
In closing, I'll leave you with the thing that
touched me the most that Emy, our recent convert, shared to one of the
families we are teaching.
"There is anything that anyone can say that can truly comfort you. Only our Father in Heaven can do that."
Everybody falls sometimes, you will find the strength to rise.
Love,
Elder Corpuz
