ROSA

From last week (almost caught up!):

January 19, 2015

New contest, new rules! If you won the last contest, you don’t get to win. You can still participate, and I’ll tell you if you’re right, but you don’t get the prize. This time, it’s a picture of me, doing a little jig!

I have another list! This is so that you guys appreciate the word “get”. I have counted 13 different definitions of the word “get”, and there are like 200 more if you add another word. Spanish doesn’t have the word “get”, so I have to translate what I want to say to one of these 13 meanings:

GET

- to obtain (Where did you get that?)

- to purchase (Where did you get that?)

- to arrive (When will you get here?)

- to become (He got really mad.)

- to deceive (Gotcha!)

- to understand (Oh, now I get it.)

- to achieve (I got it done!)

- to receive (Did you get the package?)

- to experience (He got quite a shock)

- to retrieve (Would you get my coat?)

- to persuade (I got him to do it.)

- to make happen (I got it to work!)

- to be able to (Does he get to go to the party?)

Also, I ate a cricket! Or a grasshopper. Or a locust? It’s called a “chapulín” and it tastes like a crunchy raisin. I only ate one.

So we were teaching this fella named Alejandro. He’s a cop and a journalist who works for free reporting on the happenings here in Matamoros. He has accepted the lessons very well, but he gave us a bit of a scare the other day. We had an appointment, and when we got to his house, he was waiting outside for us. He told us he couldn’t make it to the lesson, because he was about to leave, and he thanked us for coming by, but said, “You guys don’t need to come over anymore”. We kept talking, and we set up another lesson a different day. We went, and everything was back to normal, so we’re going to baptize him. Well, he still hasn’t accepted baptism, but it’s going to happen.

We haven’t seen Diego for a while. He didn’t go to church, but Karla did, and she didn’t know why he didn’t go. They didn’t show up for our lesson last night, so we’re going to try to see them today.

This week, I have gained a testimony of obedience, and that there are not exceptions to rules. I was kind of sick Tuesday and Wednesday, then my back really hurt Friday, Saturday, and Sunday so I got up late these days. Elder Howard, a zone leader, bore his testimony to me about obedience last night, and so I said, “Alright, I’ll get up on time.” This morning, I woke up on time, and during my morning prayer, I moved my arm and my shoulder popped. Just like that, my back hurt way less and now I’ll never wake up late again. 

These rules, these commandments, aren’t suggestions. This applies to missionaries and real people alike. They’re not just ideas that prophets have written down because they think “maybe someday science will realize tobacco is wrong” or “I think I’ll tell everyone they can’t eat or drink for a whole day.” No. These are real commandments from God. Apart from obeying the most powerful being in existence and setting up our place in heaven at His side, when we are obedient, we get blessed in this life, too! When we pay that 10%, or give to the poor and needy, or postpone sleep a few minutes to pray, or miss the game because a prophet is going to be speaking, we get blessed apart from the obvious blessings of feeling good because you know you’ve done good, or being nurtured by the word of God, but we are just happier, and we get blessings that we don’t even recognize. Check out Doctrine and Covenants 130: 20-21. It basically says that every time something good happens to us, or every time we receive a blessing, it’s because we were obedient. God is ready and waiting to bless us. He’s stuffed the windows of heaven overflowing with blessings for us. We just have to follow His will, and He’ll open them.

Love you guys! Just go to church. You need the sacrament. Your week will be better.

Élder Webb