* Had a fun weekend with the VanBibbers!
* Spring is definitely in the air! Spring cleaning, Yard cleanup, and the river running high are all indicators!
* Celebrated MOTHER'S DAY!! This has been moms MOST favorite Mother's Day! Beautiful Flowers now adorn the front steps, handwritten letters and notes, pictures drawn, a bluetooth speaker, SKYPing with Elder Seth Vogt and having a most incredible Spiritual Experience with August, Ben and Dad
Seth Spotlight...
* Stayed with the Assistants until Thursday (May 4th) when Elder Quinones flew home to recover. He stayed one more night there and then on Friday went back to Matagalpa and was assigned to be in a Trio with the Zone Leaders (Elders Mendez from Guatemala and Fankhauser from Utah)
* He said that Elder Mendez reminded him of August and how he thought that was cool!
* Spent 11 days with the Zone Leaders before being sent back to his original San Ramon, Matagalpa house and assigned Elder Baez (from the Dominican Republic) as his new companion
* During that 11 days, they had a Baptsim
* He said "I am keeping really busy. But it's a great type of busy. I like working hard, but also partying hard - haha - and by that I mean like chilling with the other missionaries, maybe playing a card game or something like that."
* He said that they are constantly teaching and have 20 good investigators that they are working with
Despite not having the best connection (we got disconnected several times - due to either his power going out or the internet being troublesome) and sometimes the video was laggy and the audio didn't work very well (at which point we resorted to writing what we wanted to say onto paper and holding it up for him to read)... but even with all of those inconveniences - we had a WONDERFUL time chatting with our sweet Seth! Each of the kids got some one-on-one time with him (and Lexi even performed one of her Irish jigs for him!). Here's some of the highlights of our time together...
* He is looking great! He looked genuinely happy and confident in where he was
* He's down 35 pounds since arriving to the country in November
* He looks for the good in everyone (especially in his companions)
* He will be getting a new apartment in 2 weeks. Right now they are paying $80/month (for their place that is almost unlivable!) and so he's really excited to move into a much nicer one (that will rent out for $100/month)
* His Shoes are worn out
* Favorite area so far has been Managua (and he'd like to go back)
* Now that he's back in San Ramon no one is cooking meals for them - so he says he just has bags of cereal, bags of milk and eggs (but they are actively looking for someone to cook for them...so hopefully soon!)
* Same with their Laundry - they are looking for someone to hire. He also mentioned that he's had to wash his clothes by hand (if they can't find a washing machine somewhere)
* Has eaten BBQ Iguana and he liked it
* He really likes the Mission President. He said that he is always happy and smiling and he very much respects him
* Even though the country isn't all that large, it has 5 different climates throughout it (he's currently in the mountainous "cold" (if you count 80's as cold) climate and he likes that!
* Lots of Street vendors (and every other house sells food out of their home)
* Can sometimes roll his "r's" (moreso when he's not thinking about it)
* Thinks in both English and Spanish
* They are heading into the Rainy Season (and he doesn't like being wet)
* The speed limit is super slow there (like 35 on the freeway!) and TONS of speedbumps
* He has yet to have to help move anyone as a service project (he says that Nicaraguans don't really move once they're in a place)
* He's still working on his piano playing skills (he can even read music now!)
* His first companion (Elder Lopez, who trained him) is already married after getting home in December!
* They do lots of tie exchanges with other missionaries
* He's had some pretty fun times and experiences with some of the other Missionaries
* He's really happy where he's at
* His testimony is growing. He's feeling more confident and independent
* He offered the closing family prayer (which was really special to hear him pray for us!)
* He spoke lots of Spanish for us
* and of course we had to take some pictures of us all "together"
Spiritually Speaking...
So last Sunday (Fast Sunday), as I was praying and pondering and studying I read a quote by Ezra Taft Benson that said: "We should make daily study of the scriptures a lifetime pursuit...The MOST IMPORTANT thing you can do is to immerse yourselves in the scriptures." This really touched me! A Prophet of God has told us what the MOST IMPORTANT thing we can do with our time - WOW!!! My 20-40 minutes of scripture study in the morning is good, BUT that's not immersing myself in them or giving them them my highest priority or importance! I was not following the counsel of a Prophet of God! Then I got to thinking that if the scriptures were truly so important to me, I would run to them any chance I could (vs. running to the computer or my phone or the TV, etc... because when I do that, my actions are showing God that these things are more important to me) Soooo... I issued myself a challenge that for one week, whenever I had "free time" (where I would normally hop on the computer or my phone or TV) I would choose to study the scriptures/Conference Talk/Teachings of the Prophets instead and see how the week goes... As you can imagine, I felt uplifted, encouraged, happy, peaceful, ready to take on anything that life threw at me (I was equipped with the exact words to share with Ben as we had hour long talks each day about his doubts and questions - and I also used this precious study time to research more questions Ben was asking). I learned so much about acquiring Spiritual Knowledge, about Personal Revelation, about finding answers to our questions, about Humbling ourselves, and looking for precious Principles hidden within the stories of the scriptures! (Now if I'm being honest, there were a few times at the end of a long day that I would think "Man! I'd love to just sit and relax in front of the TV!! hahah...but I turned to more study instead and you know what - once I started reading those first words, I was hooked again and the TV had no allure over me!)
Another neat experience we had was to witness August give Ben a blessing. It was beautiful, powerful and it really touched my "mom heart" to see my sweet August reaching out, bearing testimony and comforting his younger brother.
And another blessing that was given this week was one dad gave to Lexi. I'll let dad tell this sweet story in his own words...
Our sweet little LuLu had come down with an earache on Friday night. She asked to sleep with Shandy and I so we made room for her to cuddle up. Previously, we had tried one of Granny Anne's home remedies of putting vinegar in the ear for twenty minutes but that hadn't done much. Lexi was really in a lot of pain through the night. I gave her some ibuprofen at one point but she was still hurting and spent most of the night quietly crying while I held her. I drifted in and out of sleep and was awoken at around 4:00am by Lexi's crying. I rolled over to comfort her and through her tears she asked, "Daddy, can you give me a blessing?" It melted my heart to see how earnest she was and how much faith that she had. I was so touched that she thought to reach out to have the Priesthood help her in her time of need. I got up and laid hands upon her head and pronounced a blessing upon her. When it was done, she curled up on my shoulder and slept soundly for the first time that night. I was grateful to be able to help her and be an instrument in the hands of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment