dearest familia,

The rainy season has officially begun, which has been a nice change from the 100 degrees we usually enjoy (plus it kind of makes me feel like I am at home/makes me want to stay in all day and read a good book in my hammock). This week was full of a few changes: new weather, new investigators, new challenges, new rules (the mission changed the rules of P-day — we used to have meetings every P-day in the morning, and never had a lot of time to do anything else after. I guess Hna Garcia wants the missionaries to be happier/smile a little more here, so they gave us the whole entire day on monday to have P-day and it is glorious. We love it and are filling every hour with things that we could never do before, i.e. morning runs in Centro, morning breakfasts from the bread vendors, small shopping excursions, etc.).

This morning Hna Guerra and I fulfilled our long-time dream of running through Centro in the rain. We finished our run with a quick trip to the museum, which changed my life and has now inspired me to study Mayan history and the Mayan language. But really. Why have I never studied the history of the Yucatan before? The museum was full of paintings depicting the wars that had ravaged this part of the world in the earlier years. There was one painting I liked the most, one that depicted the eagle and serpent from the Mexican flag. Confession: I have never liked the Mexican flag. Maybe I thought it wasnt even cute. But after seeing this painting which depicts la lucha eterna of Mexico and reading its description, I have changed my ways and like the Mexican flag. Maybe I even think it's cute now. And all this is because I discovered that the eagle represents good, and that the serpent represents evil, and that together they tell of the constant fight between good and evil here in the Yucatan. It made me think about how all the stories from the beginning of the world have always been stories of good versus evil, right versus wrong. It has been that way since the beginning, I think, even before we came to this world. Because wasn't there opposition in the same minute that God presented His good plan to us in the heavens? I think it is interesting that every good and great story has included the fight to do what is right in opposition of the wrong, and that everyone always wants the good to win. I was thinking about this a lot this week, because we experienced a lot of rejection and had a lot of lessons with people that just didn't really understand why there has to be just one church if they think they are already okay and saved and with God. It was kind of frustrating. Actually really frustrating. But today in a museum in the center of Merida, God reminded me that there will always be right and wrong, and hard and easy, and good and bad, but that good will always win, because the good has won since the beginning of everything and has always overcome the bad in every story written in every book. So I guess at the end of the day it will always be right to be good and do good, and that in the end, good will always win. 

Love and miss you a lot and always, but am so happy to hear that the wedding was beautiful and happy!

xox

Hermana Rhondeau

my favorite

cathedral en centro

kitty in my bag

walking to the bus stop on a rainy day

red, white and green

 selfie after running through centro,  our new favorite thing to do on pdays now

look familiar?

museum musing

Q & A

Tony's baptism! His friend David baptized him; David was baptized exactly a year ago,
and tomorrow he's leaving on his mission to Mexico West — how beautiful is that?

hola hola,

Q&A because dad asked and I am going to be obedient and respond:

1) Elder Bednar experience: this will be a story that will have to be told once we are together as a family again so that we can sit down and talk for quite some time, but for now just know that it was one of those experiences that reiterated the eternal and glorious truth that God knows and loves us in a very real way. I am continually in awe of those apostles and prophets that work as Gods hands, because even with their great responsibilities and burdens and all those other things that a general authority would have to do, I have always heard stories and have now seen how they fulfill their callings in a very personal and kind way — kind of how I imagine Christ would. (thanks for sending me your love across the border, dad; he showed me the picture of you at work and I might have started crying, kind of maybe sort of). 

2) my 79 year old companion: so I don't have a favorite companion, really, because I have loved and learned from every single one of them, but I think I missed Hna Soriano the most when we had changes and she went back to working in the offices. This is probably because she is so, so good and kind and faithful and funny. She filled our little house with light and faith and knowledge, and I think I want to be like her when I am 79 years old. She went to college three times. THREE TIMES. First for accounting, then for psycology, and then for computers. Yep, I think she has three master degrees? She got married when she was forty years old, had one child, and then her husband passed away from heart problems eleven years later. She has been alone for most of her life, but has filled her years with so many of the best things. I swear everyone knows her in Mexico, and everyone missed her a lot when she left our area. She's just that type of person that leaves people better and a little fuller. 

3) current comp: this week I found out that she dated the most famous trumpet player in Panama. That just about sums up how cool she is. She is the first missionary in her family because her parents are both converts. Her mom is part of a native tribe in Panama and speaks some crazy tribal language that I can't remember the name of. She speaks both English and Spanish, and so we get to speak English quite a lot (yay). She teaches in a very real way, which I love and am learning a lot from. She is always happy, loves contacting people en la calle (which I don't like doing, so we balance each other out well), and has a knack for killing cockroaches and cleaning bathrooms. I love her. 

4) being in the same area my whole mission: I have loved being here for so long, even though I didn't feel that grateful or happy about it in the beginning of my fourth transfer here...but within these last months here in Mulsay, I have been able to know and love the members here in such a deeper and wider way, and I was able to be at the baptisms of all the people we had been teaching for awhile, which made me happy. Also, if I hadn't stayed here in this transfer I wouldn't have been able to meet and teach the Familia Gamboa, a family that has changed the whole mission for me and my understanding of the importance and greatness of families. They are so, so special to me — there is something really different about teaching an entire, complete family. Something more joyous and sacred. So, I am happy to be here and have learned to trust in the wisdom of God's timing, because it is always better than our own and our own idea of plans and the future. 

5) biggest barrier with investigators: everyone is Catholic here, which is more of a name than a thing they actually do. This makes it hard to teach them in a way that they can become converted and really change, because it is very much a "traditions of their fathers" type of situation. Sometimes I wish that God had sent me to a place where not a lot of people believed in God so that I could help them build their faith from ground zero. Because here, everyone has faith. Everyone likes listening to the words of God. But not a lot of people like changing. 

Okay, there are still many more questions that will be answered but for now know that I miss you and love you and am slightly upset that we now have a truck and I am not there to finally fulfill my lifelong dream (seriously, did no one understand that this is a LIFELONG DREAM OF MINE). Keep it safe until I get home....

xoxo

Hermana Rhondeau

Angel, with his baptism certificate. He is the cutest and has an attitude, but we love him. 

Rene with his DNA school project. He was pretty proud of it.

Lupita and her bread. She is so, so good. 

Esmeralda & Marilyn, who got baptized el cinco de Mayo. 

a pretty wooden chair

a new dessert experience en la calle

mexican flowers

nightly car adventures with our mission leader and his family

rainy skies plus calle

celebrating her one week mark with a yellow wall and hamburgers and shakes.

to act and not be acted upon

dearest family of mine,

Today we stood in a crowded calle for exactly thirty minutes while waiting for our bus ride home. The sky rained until the streets became rivers. We held two 20 lb. cardboard boxes of books that became heavier the longer they weighed us down — but I guess that is what seems to happen with anything that one holds for too long. Hna Guerra stood beside me the whole time, speaking broken English and laughing at the fact that none of the buses wanted to stop to take us home. Have I told you how much I love my new companion? Her name means "war", and every time I see those six letters on her name tag I think about the book title War and Peace, because that is what she is — strong and ready, but also calm and steady. I love her. She is so good and kind and fun. When a kind bus driver finally stopped for us, we boarded another crowded bus full of people that we don't know and have never talked to and who sometimes never look at us for fear of inviting a conversation. In these two moments — waiting on the street and standing in the bus and being soaking wet from the Merida skies — I thought about how happy I am. It is a strange thing, being so happy while doing something that is so very different and other and hard. Because that is what a mission is: hard. And exhausting. And long, sometimes. But then there is that principle of opposition in all things; that principle of joy and eternal happinesses and real things opposed to those sadnesses and worldy things. I thought about the scripture that mom gave me one time that talks about being joy-full, 

These things I have spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy may be full (John 15:11)

That is what I feel, a joy that is in me, that stays and that is real. It really is a fullness. I think it's mostly because I just really love the people that God has given me here. Hna Lupita came with us to visit some of our new investigators on Tuesday. She wore the jean skirt and high heel shoes that she always wears for special things, along with her crocheted bag full of her Book of Mormon and new hymn book that she likes to take good care of. She talked to us about her thirteen chickens (not twelve, thirteen), and how she likes to pay tithing and how she signed up to clean the church on Saturday and how she planned on visiting some of the members that don't go to church anymore. Sometimes we find her outside of our house right at 9 o'clock, waiting a few long minutes so that she can gift us the rest of her plan. Then Hno Carlos came with us to visit Hno Tonay for one of his last lessons before his baptism. Carlos hasnt gone to church for three years after his dad left him and he and his mom had to start working in order to fill what was missing. But last Sunday he came to church, and we didn't quite know why.Then on Wednesday after our lesson with him, he agreed to help us teach other people about the Gospel and we didn't know why. Then on Sunday we had a first lesson with a family that we had contacted the Wednesday before, and their nine year old son had already read up to the fourth chapter of Nephi and all of them had read the chapter that we had left for them to read. We taught them about the Plan of Salvation and they really listened, like really listened to what we were saying. I have never felt the Spirit like that before, as if heaven and earth weren't as far as I had thought them to be, that God was really there and His love was really there with this family and with us. 

These people are what give me joy — the people that act and are not acted upon. The people that are agents unto themselves and not merely objects; the people that experiment on the words we give them. Whenever they act on the principle of faith, I feel like celebrating, which is probably what God does every time one of His children decides to act and do the right thing. I imagine a celebration in the heavens, because that is what I feel like doing. Every single time. Because I think the longer one is out on a mission and sharing their testimony and teaching a whole bunch of first and last lessons, the more one realizes that they cannot force anyone to do anything; that they can not act for another person or have faith for another person. The faith and action of one person is entirely their own, which is why it is so entirely joyfull and wonderful when someone chooses to act and have faith, whether it be through reading a chapter that they said they would or visiting someone that doesn't believe in real and eternal things again or putting on a white shirt and tie for the first time in three years and going to church. That is faith, the real kind of faith.  

Hope all is well in your corner of the world. Not a day passes that I do not think of you and how much I love you each so wholly and completely. Sending my love and joy all the way across the border,

Hermana Rhondeau