The men here tease and cat call a LOT. Especially when there are two North American girls walking by in dresses. It is actually hilarious what they say sometimes. This week one called out to us (in direct translation), "Oh Baby, gift me your heart!". I was tempted to turn around and tell him my heart was dedicated to God, but that seemed very extreme and dramatic so we just picked up our pace and laughed about it later.
Bolivia does have my heart. I look out my window every night and thatnk god that I have the chance to be here. then I wake up in the morning, happy to see my beautiful city of Cochabamba. There are so many people here that I absolutely love, and it just keeps growing.
Someone I love for being able to help her, is Cristina. She got baptized about a year ago and has gone through a lot of trials ever since, and has become less active. When we met her this week, she let us in immediately just because we were the missionaries. Before we started talking she was crying. She unloaded all of her problems and heartache onto us. We gladly took it. We read and prayed and decided to fast together. It was an amazing experience that I hope she takes and wants to come back to church- back to God.
Someone else who has my heart and patience is Jhulver, an amazing young man with desires to know the truth. He is SO ready to be baptized. He is just scared of messing up or regretting his decision later. He also got scared to pray because a few weeks ago we read him the story of Joseph Smith, and he doesn't want to be overcome by a dark spirit like Joseph was... oops. So this week we shared the story of the Prodigal Son and focused on the fact that the Father came running just at seeing his son, even though far off, headed in the right direction.
This is my testimony that God loves us with all His heart and will accept us and carry us home if we just TRY to walk in His path. In the October 2017 General Conference, Elder Holland quotes an author, Leo Tolstoy...
"Attack me if you wish, but don't attack the path I follow. If I know the way home but am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side?...Do not gleefully shout 'Look at him! There he is crawling into a bog!' No, do not gloat, but give your help to ANYONE trying to walk the road back to God."
Fun facts:
-Supposedly everyone is on summer vacation right now, becuase it's supposed to be summer. But it is SO COLD sometimes because it is cloudy all day so the sun never gets to us.
-I ate the best mango in the world this week. You can argue and say you had a better one, but you will be wrong.
-- Don't count the days, make the days count!
~Hermana Madsen
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete