hola hola,
Happy first day of December! We are getting quite excited over here in Merida with this season, and apparently everyone else here is, too (i.e. the child we saw running through the calle in full Santa Claus garb — beard and all). This morning we discovered a Sams Club after our district meeting, and we may or may not have gone a little overboard with our shopping list (it is a little difficult not to when we found ourselves in a type of Costco for the first time in months). It was quite the glorious moment for me when I could actually listen to the music in the store because it was about Christ — oh how I love this season!
This week went by rather quickly, mostly because we had lots of meetings and were traveling back and forth between our area and Centro. Among the things that we have begun to learn together: 1) how to transport a wheelchair in a crowded bus, and 2) how to get to our lesson appointments faster by me running and pushing the wheelchair from behind — much more efficient, and I also get in a daily run that I have been missing. We have had to revamp our schedules a tad because of our new mean of transport, but we are trying to travel as quickly and efficiently as possible to have more lessons, because a lot of our investigators are progressing (woohoo!). Hno. Juan is supposed to be baptized tomorrow, however he needs to get married first. He and his girlfriend are hoping to get married today in order to make this possible, but we still dont know the verdict on this — pero, we are still hoping that a wedding and a baptism are possible because we believe in miracles!
This week I have been praying more for the attributes of charity and love. The people of Merida have taught me a lot in this regard — how to love in a way that is more selfless and open than any love I have ever encountered before. Everyone here loves in an open and vulnerable way, and I have come to realize that many people here know how to love like Christ does. Entonces, my heart has been drawn to thinking about the attribute of love lately, and how I can better live with love. My prayers have mostly been answered in a way that I am better able to recognize love every day. I have found there is the type of love that is obvious and pure, like the teenage couple studying their musical theory homework together on the bus, or the type that is quietly good like the man on the bus that gave up his seat three times for complete strangers. And then there is the love that is greater than the world and more directed towards God, seen in that moment when Hno. Juan and Hna. Karen commit to paying tithing, even though they don't have jobs or any money. There is the love that sings of the things of eternity in the words of a youth speaker crying over the fact that his family is forever, and the type of love one feels in that moment for an investigator that has a new trial and new sadness every single visit — the love that arises from feeling pain. I have realized that all of these types of love is the type of love that Chrsit has — because everything that Christ did and everything that Christ said was because of His love for us. And this is why love is powerful, because its the love of Christ that changed lives and hearts and futures. His type of love was not only a feeling, but a feeling that He chose to act on every single day. Im beginning to hope that my life can one day become like this, too.
Hoping that all is lovely and snowing in Utah and that you have bought a real tree to put in our living room!
mucho amor,
Naomi
*okay yes, I might have stolen this line from John Mayer
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