Week 48: Like the Other Girls

Happy … Monday?

That’s right, everybody, eleven months into my mission, and this is when I finally have the universal P-Day!

This letter from Mom was two months in the making!

I am still the mission nurse with Hermana González, but we have moved areas. Instead of the beloved Calvario, we are in el Baúl! Which is such an amazing area. It basically has everything consolidated into a pretty small space. You have typical cityscape, neighborhoods, a college campus, and we border the forest! Baúl is also more in the mountains, which means we walk a lot of hills, but it also means that there are a ton of views of Xela and the temple. It’s especially impressive at nighttime, but unfortunately, my camera has not been able to capture the in-person experience.

The temporary Rivera/Juarez companionship while waiting for their greenies to arrive was nothing short of iconic.

Eighteen new missionaries came in this transfer, and only two of them were native Spanish speakers. Because of flight plans, we got to have two orientations with nine missionaries. To be honest, it is a lot to move into an entirely new area (that was previously closed) and have to do an orientation, let alone two. But we persevere, and hey! I’m still alive at the end of it.

Sorry, I’m in a call.

Shockingly, I knew someone in both of these groups of new missionaries. More accurately, they knew me. Shoutout to Elder Blaylock, who was in the same ward as my cousin Daniel, and to Elder Fleischel, who’s from my home stake! Both of them have names I’m positive the natives will have a great time figuring out how to pronounce.

You ever walking along the street and see the name of an important location in church history?

This week, while studying for a lesson, I was thinking about faith. While looking through the scriptures, I found this verse in Alma 5:

15 Do ye exercise faith in the redemption of him who created you? Do you look forward with an eye of faith, and view this mortal body raised in immortality, and this corruption raised in incorruption, to stand before God to be judged according to the deeds which have been done in the mortal body?

I also found this story in President Nelson’s most recent conference talk:

Two years ago, Sister Nelson and I visited Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, and Tahiti. Each of those island nations had experienced heavy rains for days. Members had fasted and prayed that their outdoor meetings would be protected from the rain.  

In Samoa, Fiji, and Tahiti, just as the meetings began, the rain stopped. But in Tonga, the rain did not stop. Yet 13,000 faithful Saints came hours early to get a seat, waited patiently through a steady downpour, and then sat through a very wet two-hour meeting. 

 We saw vibrant faith at work among each of those islanders—faith sufficient to stop the rain and faith to persevere when the rain did not stop.

What I love about this scripture and this story is that they remind us what our faith is for. I think it’s easy to view faith as the fuel for a miracle machine. And that’s not exactly inaccurate. But it’s an incredibly selfish motivation.

We don’t have faith in Christ in order for Him to give us what we want. We don’t use it as this bargaining tool to make demands. Faith, more than anything else, is about perseverance. It is about the strength and meaning we gain from believing in something. We ascend from simply seeing the world as it is, and we gain the optimism of viewing things as they could be if we just wait a little longer, do something a little differently, and put our trust in God.

I have used that faith a lot this week, and a lot during my mission in general. I’m grateful for how it inspires me, and I hope it can inspire you too, as we all keep moving forward, knowing that it can and will get better.

— Yours sincerely,

Hermana Newton