Week 39: He is Risen! Here is Hope!

MLC

Semana santa = heat and no one is home

We hit 111⁰ out here in San Pedro Sula this week. But we ball. We found our way around the heat and taught a lot of lessons inside the church building or institute building and the Spirit was just so strong and it was super cool to be able to use big whiteboards and TVs to show videos and help our friends visualize the Gospel.

Had my first mission leadership council (MLC) this week and it was so cool to be a part of the process of brainstorming how we can improve the mission. It was also super awesome to see some absolute dawgs again and maybe for the last time🥲

We had interviews with President McClellan in his house and it was so good. We talked about what I have to do to be the missionary the Lord needs me to be and let's just say my studies are about to go crazy.

Cool stories…

We got a text from some sister missionaries in Canada that they found someone through facebook who lives in San Pedro Sula and is super interested in the gospel, the Book of Mormon, and being baptized! The only catch, he only speaks English. I was honestly so nervous to teach in English because I have never done it before, but the Spirit came in clutch and it was so surreal to teach in my language. We did a video call to teach him (Chris) with the sisters and then yesterday we met in-person with some other missionaries. The Spirit was so strong and as we taught the Restoration we arrived to the account of the First Vision. As missionaries, we memorize this passage of scripture to recite to the people we teach because of the power and testimony it contains of Jesus Christ and God the Father. However, for the past 9 months I have only studied it in Spanish and in our lesson with Chris, somehow, the exact words in English came to my mind. It was honestly something so small but such a great testimony of the power and importance of the Spirit in our teaching. We aren't the teachers. Christ uses us to share His message to ALL of His children. It turns out Chris lives just outside of our area but he is in good hands and I can't wait to see his progression.

We are teaching a medical school student named Gadiel and he has had some doubts recently about how ready he feels for his baptism. However, his faith is incredible. He is from a city about 2 hours away from here and during this week of vacations, he stayed in San Pedro instead of going home to visit his family so he could continue to listen to us. He has the desire to be baptized but still felt like he wasn't ready but yesterday we had quite possibly the most powerful lesson I have been a part of in my mission. In front of the baptismal font, us missionaries and converts to the church of all backgrounds shared our conversion stories and afterward, Gadiel texted us and said he feels ready to make his first covenant with his Heavenly Father! No words can truly describe the joy and Spirit I have felt while teaching him.

As many of you know, we all had the sacred opportunity to celebrate the most important event in the history of all eternity this week. The Resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ, is why we call him our Savior, Redeemer, King, etc. The Resurrection of Christ is why we can have hope in this life and in all circumstances. He suffered everything. Every pain, temptation, sin, weakness, sickness, and even death. All so we, his imperfect family, can receive the empathy, healing, forgiveness, and hope we need to have joy in this life and for eternity. Joy is not your circumstance, but your perspective. There is no sadness, pain, or despair in an eternal perspective. God made it perfect and Christ completed it all for us.

Love you all so much! Happy Easter!

Élder Snyder