Monday, June 15, 2015

June 15th, 2015 - Weekly Letter


Family,
    It sounds like you all had a very busy, but awesome week last week!  I guess it's Jon's last high adventure for a while!!!  And with David Matthews, you don't have to go.  I didn't know him that well, so don't worry about it.  I love to see the fun that you're all having over there in Utah.  Is it really hot in Utah right now??? Because here in Chihuahua it's Really hot.  But it's great.....still loving it here in La Junta!

    So this last week was really good!  And it all started with the zone activity we had on Monday.  We just played soccer for a few hours, but we hadn't done that for a while, so I finally got all my energy out again. 

    On Tuesday we had to go to Chihuahua because it was time for my companion to renew his visa.  It was cool because there is a service missionary named Elder Arrieta that is from here in Chihuahua, and he is going to serve his mission in the offices for a year and a half, so when we went we were chatting and he thanked me a ton. He told me that I was one of the reasons he served a mission, because when I was in Lagos and Elayne got baptized, I insisted that he baptize her, even though he has health problems and it was going to be really hard, but he told me that for persisting him so much, it helped him have the desire to serve a mission.  So that was really cool to hear that from him.

   Wednesday was also a great day!  After lunch we went to Maria Elena´s house, one of the members, and we helped her pretty much for the whole day to move stuff around in her house and clean up.  She just barely finished making an extra room so we moved everything from the other room to that room.  Also, for the first time ever I got to see fireflies.  I didn't know that they existed here, but the children of Maria Elena took us out back to look for some, and they're really cool.  So when it started to get later, we played with fireflies!! 

    Then from Thursday to Sunday I went on divisions with Elder Zarco, and my companion went with the other zone leader to another area in the zone.  It was fun, and we worked our butts off, because we had to work in both of our areas, or in other words, the whole city. But it was way fun. When Sunday came around the Lord blessed us and we had 4 investigators at church.

    Sunday night, or last night, we saw a miracle as well.  So about 2 weeks ago we found this kid, 9 years old, that wanted to be baptized, but we could never find him again.  So last night as we were walking around, we only had about an hour until we were supposed to enter into the house, and we found him sitting on the street.  He's what they call a Tarahumara....it's like the original race here.....they're literal Lamanite descendants.  So we found him and we went to baptize him.  I feel really bad for the kid because he was just so happy to go with us to the church.  When we were going to take pictures he grabbed our cameras and started taking pictures like crazy....he had never really seen a camera.  He has a really sad story, but now he's baptized....clean!  And we're going to continue helping him so that he has a better life then he would've had if it weren't for the church. 

     So yeah.....that was my week. Also one of these days last week I was thinking about punishments.  I was thinking, well God does everything with a purpose, and everything He does helps us get closer to Him.....so then why does he punish us??? And that's when I read this in D&C 95:1

   "Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you whom I love, and whom I  love I also chasten that their sins may be forgiven, for with the chastisement I prepare a way for their deliverance in all things out of temptation, and I have loved you."

   So it made me realize that the Lord punishes us to help us NOT have the temptation.  He punishes us as a way to free us from temptation. I hadn't really thought about it much like that, but it's because God loves us....just like it says in the end of the verse. 

    I love this church, I love this gospel, and more than anything, I love my Savior, Jesus Christ.  I wouldn’t trade anything for the blessings that the Lord has gave me throughout my life!!!!

    Thank you all for everything you do!!!  I hope you all have a great week....love you and miss you all!!!

-Elder Loveless

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