4/22/19 - Easter is the most important holiday
I'm totally healed from Dengue. Now I'm ready to get right back to
work. Thanks for all your prayers! I can sure feel them. Side note:
guess who showed up out of nowhere at my door? Bernardo. She had to come
to Santana to do some medical stuff but she
told me she really came to make sure I was resting and getting better
from this dengue. She even remembered my hot chocolate obsession and
brought starbucks hot chocolate. That girl is an angel.
Something that I discovered this year is that Easter is the most
important holiday we celebrate. Why? Because it's centered on the most
important thing that happened in all of human history. The selfless
sacrifice our Savior made for us through His infinite
Atonement.
Even though we spent most of the week at home when we went back to
work things just got super hard. We ended up cutting almost everyone in
our teaching pool and in our proccess of finding new people to teach
almost everyone we talked to were extra thick,
rude and ignorant with their rejections. But, that's just part of
missionary work. As I was studying Come Follow Me this week about the
Atonement and Easter, I was reminded of a talk by Elder Holland titled
"Missionary work and the Atonement" I wanted to share
a few parts with you all this week.
'Anyone
who does any kind of missionary work will have occasion to ask, Why is
this so hard? Why doesn’t it go better?
Why can’t our success be more rapid? Why aren’t there more people
joining the Church? It is the truth. We believe in angels. We trust in
miracles. Why don’t people just flock to the font? Why isn’t the only
risk in missionary work that of pneumonia from being
soaking wet all day and all night in the baptismal font?
You will have occasion to ask those questions. I have thought about this
a great deal. I offer this as my personal feeling. I am convinced that
missionary work is not easy because salvation
is not a cheap experience. Salvation never was
easy. We are The Church of Jesus Christ, this is the truth, and He is
our Great Eternal Head. How could we believe it would be easy for us
when it was never, ever easy for Him? It seems to me that missionaries
and mission leaders have to spend at least a few
moments in Gethsemane. Missionaries and mission leaders have to take at
least a step or two toward the summit of Calvary."
I'll never forget a woman I taught in Aldeia da Serra who told us that
all it takes to gain salvation is to read the bible and have faith,
that's it. My heart broke for her because Salvation is not cheap
experience. It takes work and as missionaries we need
to be bold, compasionate, but bold in declaring that.
Elder Holland continues,
"Now, please don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about anything
anywhere near what Christ experienced. That would be presumptuous and
sacrilegious. But I believe that missionaries and investigators,
to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to know something of this
price that has been paid, will have to pay a token of that same price.
For that reason I don’t believe missionary work has ever been easy, nor
that conversion is, nor that retention is, nor that continued
faithfulness is. I believe it is supposed to require some effort,
something from the depths of our soul.
If He could come forward in the night, kneel down, fall on His face,
bleed from every pore, and cry, “Abba, Father (Papa), if this cup can
pass, let it pass,”16 then
little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for us.
If you wonder if there isn’t an easier way, you should remember you are
not the first one to ask that. Someone a lot greater and a lot grander
asked a long time ago if there wasn’t an easier
way.
The Atonement will carry the missionaries perhaps even more importantly
than it will carry the investigators. When you struggle, when you are
rejected, when you are spit upon and cast out and made a hiss and a
byword, you are standing with the best life this
world has ever known, the only pure and perfect life ever lived. You
have reason to stand tall and be grateful that the Living Son of the
Living God knows all about your sorrows and afflictions. The only way to
salvation is through Gethsemane and on to Calvary.
The only way to eternity is through Him—the Way, the Truth, and the
Life."
I
want to add my testimony to that of Elder Holland's. The Atonment can
carry us all. Missionaries and members alike. When we truly desire to be
diciples of Christ and
stand with Him, we have to be willing to fight a little bit of the
fight he fought.
In
Sunday School this week we talked about how Christ always had a
multitude following Him. Even in His moments of grief like when He found
out His cousin, John the Baptist,
was dead, He gave priority to the needs of the multitude. But when He
was judged before Pilot, where were all these people who loved Him?
Where were these people who supported Him when He needed them? The
scriptures tell us only a few people were with Him
at the cross. Each of us should examine our lives and ask ourselves if
we are apart of the multitude or apart of the few with Him at the
cross. How seriously do we take the Atonement and apply it in our lives?
One of the biggest things I've learned here on
the mission is how to see and apply the Atonement as a very personal
thing. I've seen a big difference in the moments when I've applied the
Atonement as a sacrifice He made out of love for me personally. He
lives. I'm so thankful for Him. For His example,
for His love, For His sacrifice.
With
that I hope you all have a great week and look for ways to apply the
Atonement in your lives. Remember it's there not just for repentance,
but to strengthen
us and help us overcome our weaknessess and challenges.
Love you all!
Sister Barlow
3) Easter egg colored houses
4) Easter Sunsets
5) Dying Easter eggs
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