In the Service of God - May 1, 2017

Hello Everyone, Well this week the theme is easily something that has stuck out this week. In the Book of Mosiah when King Benjamin is speaking to his people. When he states "When you are in the service of your fellow men you are only in the service of your God." This week it has been a week of nearly pure service. Last Sunday when we were in church Hermana Margarita got a call saying that a Sister in the ward had her house collapse. Here most of the houses are made out of reeds and grass and they dont even use nails to hold the wooden posts together. It is amazing that they are able to hold up for so long. Anyways after church we all went running over to her house to try to help her have decent living conditions again. We cleaned up all the rubble and afterwards we made sure that there was a place for her to sleep. 3 nights this week we have gone over along with a lot of other people in the ward to go dig the trenches for the cement foundation and to start building the house. Something that was hard was that I had learned all of the building terms in spanish, but this all threw me off because all of a sudden all of hermanos were speaking in Zapoteco. So we just worked were we thought we were needed trying to pick up a little bit of what they were saying. But it has been a fun expience to be building this house for her. Also this week, Hermano Oscar has been remodeling his house a little bit and had two dump truck loads of dirt dumped on his property. This week we have been helping him get the dirt scattered all over his property. All of this is just helping my hands get back in farm shape, yes I still have blisters but my hands are getting back to where they were 2 years ago. It was tiring and I thought that I could keep up with just about anyone working like that but these guys here dont stop!! It is hard to keep up with them. For example on Saturday we were digging holes to put the cement posts down for this one house. My companion and I had 1 done and the other guys had like 3 done!! It was crazy. But it has been fun getting back into "farm shape" this week. As for our teaching. This week we had a really special experience with Gisela again. She told us that a few years ago one of her sisters died in a car accident. It was really hard for the whole family to have that happen. This week she has been telling us that more than ever she has felt the presence of her sister in her life. She asked why she was feeling that because the common belief here is that after 40 days the spirit of the person goes away and never comes back. WE taught her the eternal truths of the plan of salvation and the blessings of the temple. The experiences that Gisela is having are really sacred, this is what I can share while keeping the sacredness of the experiences that she has shared with us this week. Our little soccer team continues to progress. They are undefeated still and they say that it is because they have been keeping the word of wisdom. This Friday they will be getting baptized and we are so excited for them!! They have been some of the best investigators in learning and understanding to see progress. They are going to be powerful priesthood holders and are going to bring so many people into the gospel. This has been our week this week. Elder Fuentes has been awesome at being ready to share the gospel and continues with a great attitude towards everything. These weeks have been far from easy, actually possibly some of the most difficult that I have had in my mission. Yet this experience has been a temple experience for me. I love a talk "Lessons From Liberty Jail" by Jefferey R. Holland, that explains when we are in the turmoil of life, we can have temple experiences that draw us closer to God to see miracles. This experience here has been such an amazing experience to help me draw closer to Christ and feel his power and influence. For that I know that he guides this work. I hope that you all have a good week!! Elder Peterson