Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Letter September 9, 2013

Hey fambam. Thanks for the great messages in your emails this week! Words of wisdom. Sounds like everyone is doing well--even with the small mishaps and lessons to be learned during trials in this life. 

Saturdays have turned in to Japanese-day because Akio cooks for us. He's the family friend of a member in our branch that moved to Chile from Japan. He doesn't believe in God and doesn't want us to teach him, but he likes to cook. This Saturday he made us ''misu-siru'' (soup). He's a silly little guy with his broken spanish. All he ever talks about is how to cook with naturally healthy foods.

Mum, I wanted to ask if you could write me your testimony in Spanish. Maybe about the importance of attending church or something. I suppose anyone else can send me theirs too, but the idea is that I can show it to my investigators to help motivate them to get out of bed on Sunday mornings. Thanks!

Our branch president got released since he's moving to Concepción, so the stake presidency came to preside our meetings on Sunday. The good news is that they are fantastic. The bad news is that our branch has no priesthood holders accept us missionaries. So that might answer some questions that Dad has had about my responsibilities as elders quorum president...ha. There's a few members that have the priesthood, but they either aren't active and/or aren't worthy. So it's a work in progress. Until a new branch president can be called, a member from the Stake Presidency will preside each week. I'm actually very glad they'll be here each week.

As far as transfers, there are none. My testimony that you can't pray away a trial has been reconfirmed. I love Yumbel and would love to keep working here, but I was hoping for a change of companions. Latin pride is just killing us right now. But rather than complain, my question to Heavenly Father is, ''What am I to learn from this?''

Random question: How much do Gary Thortons' horses cost? 

To end with a spiritual thought, I was reading in the September Liahona and found so many treasures within. It's an edition definitely meant for me and our family. One message I liked best was by Elder Holland, who wrote about the  justice and mercy of God. He talks about how we can become captive to sin and guilt unless we repent, and I started pondering about Christ's role in freeing us. I was impacted that Christ, the only man completely free from sin, submitted himself to the captivity of other men to be tied, beaten, and crucified. He symbolically showed us physically what happens to us spiritually. It is so unjust that the only one free of guilt was the one that had to pay the full price. What a debt we owe to our Savior. And the only way to show Him our gratitude is by living His restored gospel in its fulness by daily repenting until we become perfected in Him.

Have a wonderful week. Love you!
Elder Long :)

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