I am glad that everything is alright and that you are all always protected and happy. We are doing pretty well here as well, we appear to have found some solutions for the health problems and in order to find those solutions did some fairly neat exploring of the city in gua gua (bus kind of thing). It was cool to drive around and stuff.
So thats cool to hear about the Olympics. I forgot all about that they were happening. Oops. Thats cool they will be held in Korea next. Yeaaah! I am glad everyone got to ski around and see cool things and meet people out in the snow. Sometimes I think I feel cold but I realize that really it is about 25 degrees or more and it is all just in my head and I am turning Dominican. Ya tu sabes. I am glad the sisteries are doing cool things and that they are enjoying the weather and cool things. Sounds awesome!
Elder Herrmann and I shall be staying together another transfer in Ivan Guzman! I am really excited to still be with Elder Herrmann, about staying in the area, well it is still pretty cool and all the Mercado family is superbly happy about it as their choir shall still be beautiful until their son leaves and no one can play the piano. Ah well. Elder Diaz is staying as well with his companion. He has been here forever now, a third of his mission will be spent in Ivan Guzman. Its strange that we barely even know what the rest of the Domincan is even like whatsoever. I mean, I have seen some nice parts where the office and temple are, but thats about it, and its doesnt feel Dominican there, the Dominican to me is still Ivan Guzman. Some nice houses. No high buildings, a bunch of strangeness and such, water and light problems and the humble poor against the proudful rich. Interesting.
Well last week was pretty cool. We have actually progressed so much farther than I thought we had and are having success in helping the area and people much more than I thought before. I suppose its because we started from so little again. I really hope to see some sort of rise and success in this area before I leave it. But I suppose that doesnt really matter as just growing and having the Spirit so much has been worth all my time and life, and sharing it with other people has been especially edifying and cool.
Last week we met this atheist (like, the rarest thing ever in the Dominican only the second I´ve ever seen) who was really adamant and contentious with us. Really wanted to defend his position and such and not accept even just our pamphlet thingy. We respected him greatly, but he didnt believe us when we said we understood him. Made me realize a few things about what life really means, when I asked him why he continues living, obeying the law and doing normal things. He answered to do things he likes to do. To do things that please him. Didnt care about leaving an impression on the world or anything. He was raised in a church, but never believed in it and never recieved answers to the few prayers he said. I wondered to myself, and even said to him, if that all the purpose was just to obtain nothing and please ourselves, well thats kind of just sad, and if I didnt truly have purpose, a Father in Heaven who truly understands and a grand potential to be something great and be part of the Family of God for eternity, well I would probably just do a bunch of crazy things to enter the supposed ¨endless sleep¨ instead of wasting other people´s time or something. There is truly a reason that as humans we reason with thought greater than just survival, and I have really realized through before and after the mission that it is because we are children of God. We have divine potential. We have purpose. And our message to the world is that all people are of the Family of God and all of us can be reunited, if we are but willing to do His work here on earth so that we can continue the work for always. I hope people can see that, and come to know that like we have.
We have been having a new abundance of the Spirit in lessons with a new devotion to loving the people and truly consegrating ourselves to God, just as He has consecrated Himself to us. Lessons have a new flow and meaning, people are understanding better and better and new investigators of higher quality have been appearing. We still need to work really hard, and of course everyone has their struggles and pitfalls, but we have been working differently to truly have the Spirit always. Its really something special to see people open up and truly come to know their purpose and understand who they really are. My convert has been struggling with some weight he says he feels, and by sharing with him to truly let go of such trouble and leave it behind and give up such things to God and entregarse..... um... deliver himself into God´s hands and love. Our few investigators have actually been reading and praying, a few of them are really there in terms of recieving the Spirit. Hopefully its not just what I think because I dont fully understand what they truly mean. But really, I am terrible at reading people its just out here that the gift of discernment is granted.
Thats cool that someone is there from Guatemala. I suppose my spanish is fine. I understand people unless they use some word I have never heard ever that is super complex and I cant talk about medicines or strange things like that very well, but I communicate with everyone and they communicate back and I understand and know basically every word they say. I dont think in English when speaking Spanish. The words in Spanish just mean what they mean, not some English word. So its pretty good. Haha. I dunno. Lessons are way different from normal conversation in terms of understanding. And I definitely express spiritually and my deeper thoughts better in Spanish than in English. Weird, the whole being called thing.
I hope you are all doing very well. I know that the Lonsdale family has gone through some tough times and that you are affected as well, but that you always continue onwards, and it is truly a part of what we must pass through. Job lost everything he had, Alma and Amulek faced great horror, but none of that mattered in terms of their God. They truly realized what consegration means. That because God gives all for us, we must give all to him. The people of Ammon gave up their lives before taking another. I have lost every investigator with the exception of Javier, all our investigators are new as of now. No one gets anything easy, and it shouldnt be so. Rather, it has been a priviledge to pay the price to come to know God. I hope to see fruits of the work, but at least I must return home a convert after having given all, even if Javier should be the only one. I suppose that is what we learn here, how to consecrate ourselves. And I have another month and a half in Ivan Guzman to figure it out.
Thank you so much for being my great family. Dont worry about us, we eat fairly healthy, probably just a little too much. We drink lots of fancy teas and look at sunsets sometimes which may or may not be extremely weird. Please always be alright. Que siempre sigan adelante y nunca desmayen. Porque Dios nos sostendrá.
Con amor siempre,
Elder Sullivan
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