Because I have been given much . . .

 

 

Hey Mom. Don't worry. The first step to growing old is becoming a grandparent and you still have lots of time before you become one of . . . oh well mmm never mind.

 

But I think that growing old is necessary. If we at some point didn't feel our body dying, either by time when we are old or cancer when we are young, I dont think that we would apprecieate our resurected body. I think that is why we must pass through death to become imortal. Because we can't fully understand life until we pass through death. (I am forgetting how to spell English, my spelling wasn't all that strong to begin with but without spell check in English it is getting worse.)

 

So I want to tell you about one of the members that we have here in our area. Her name is Nancy. She is the seminary teacher here in Cucuta. She has been in the hospital or clinc for about a month now because she has cancer. She is waiting to be taken to a different city where they have more things to help her. We have visted her serval times. I have not yet heard her complain once. The other day we visted her and asked how she was doing. She told us that she was doing well and then said that she felt so blessed . . . if I had cancer I do not think that I would be able to say that. She told us that right now her biggest concern was that nobody was teaching the seminary class and asked us to visit the bishop to talk to him about that. During her time in the hospital or clinic she and her daughter have given the missionaries 7 refrences and one is getting baptized this week and another has a baptismal date for the 16 of May.

 

I do not think I need to explain how special this person is. If she, being in her condition, feels blessed, is worrying about others, and doing missionary work. How much more should we, being healthy and capable, feel blessed, be serving others, and doing missionary work.

 

Some of my favorite scriptures are what Paul wrote to Timothy.

Telling him to keep the faith and fight the good fight. That is something that all of us should do.

Towards the end of his life Paul wrote something similar to Timothy but this time Paul was talking about himself and he told Timothy "I have keep the faith and I have faught the good fight."

How sad I would be if we reached the end of our life with regrets knowing that soon we must stand before God knowing that we had the potential to do so much more than we did. and that we were more like the servent who took the talent of his lord and buried it, instead of developing it into something greater. Wouldn't it feel so much better to leave this world know that we had fought the good fight. I image Paul used the word fight intentially becasue a fight or a battle is not easy. It is hard and we must do hard things if we want to be like god.

 

That's all for this week. The church is true. Love the Book of Mormon.

Love, Elder Rallison

Tales from Cucuta

Queridisma madre

The office does have a package for me. They have had it for a while now. Since the transfer I am not sure when I will get it. But, yes, the package did get to the office. My comp and I had a baptism this last Rriday and the confirmation yesterday so that was cool. It was also my comps birthday last Friday so we ended up eating a lot of cake. I am in a house with 3 other missionaries and that is pretty cool and weird because it is the first time that I have lived in a house with another conpanionship. But the nice thing is that all of them are really cool so I do not mind. There is another gringo here and two Spanish speakers. The president of our mission has a goal for all the missionaries to be bi-lingual so we have to help our companions learn English . . . so I feel like this may retard my progression with the spanish language but I guess we will see what happens.

 

Everything is good here. I still do not know the area or the investigatores very well so I can't really tell you a whole lot yet.

 

Oh well de hecho. I can tell one one story that happend to my comp and I. We are teaching this family. The parents are less actives. They were baptized 15 yrs ago and became less actives shortly after for something stupid. But the kids are not members. So we were sitting with them doing the small talk before the lesson and right when we are about to start another man walks in. We asked him who he was and we found out that he is a preacher or missionary for another church and he had also been visiting the family to try and indoctrinate them. So we started our lesson. Everything is going well and then he says he just has one question. How come you guys do not keep the sabath day on Saturday . . . and boom he started going off on this and that and killed the spirit. Then another Adventista came and then it ended up being a Bible bash between my comp and me and them while the family watched. We did get a small victory. I tricked the Adventistas into promising to read at least 5 chapters of the Book of Mormon and then I told them that since they are "men of god" that they wouldn't lie to me. And they confirmed that. Sooo haha they have to read it now and said that they would. But ya so I don't know what we are going to do with this family. and I still do not have my scriptures (I accidently left them in Bucaramanga) so destroying false doctrine is a little bit harder. Iy's the freaking apostasia that I am hearing.

 

The Church is true. We're led by prophets. Love, Elder Rallison 

 

Watch out Cucuta, here comes Elder Rallison

 

Hey family. Well it looks like my time here in La Cumbre is over and I am leaving the city of Bucaramanga and I am going to Cucuta. I do not know if that is how you spell it but I am sure that I will figure it out when I get there. Just my luck. It seems that God was waiting for me to buy more than 110 lbs of exercise equipment to send me somewhere else. Its about 5 or 6 hour bus ride soooo I do not know if I will get to write again and I do not have a whole like of time. I have to be in the bus terminal at 10:00 so ya that will be fun. I am pretty much all packed. I just need to find space for my pants... and shirts ... and socks sooo ya.

 

I do not know who my comp is yet but I am a little sad that I am leaving because we have a baptism this Saturday. I am more sad since he asked me to baptize him. And a little more sad because we have 6 more baptisms planned befor this transfer . . . .

 

So I hope a new missionary comes here or a missionary who hasn't had a whole lot of success because this next transfer is going to be nice for the missionaries in this area. I hope I get to write again because I have some good stories

 

Oh ya - the gospel is true. Prayer works so that is pretty awesome.

"Por la razón o la fuerza" that is the national mado or theme for Chile.

I like it so I am stealing it. I want to forever be a possessor of strength; spiritually, mentally, and physically

Elder Rallison