Week 54: Book of Mormon Stories

Epic P-Day

Today we went to a Mayan Ruin site about an hour and a half from our area, and it was very interesting. We learned that there are still people who practice some of the Mayan rituales (nothing violent, just ceremonial fires and prayers) and that, in 2012 when everyone thought the world was going to end, those people came to this site (part tourist museum, part acheological work site, part hallowed ground) and watched the sun rise and thanked their version of God for a new millenium. It was peaceful to put my feet there for a little while.

858 Books

Last Tuesday was the activity where we gave Books of Mormon to every student in a giant high school-like institution in our town. Going classroom by classroom. we showed them all the five-minute video that can be found at the following link:

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2011-11-018-a-book-of-mormon-story?lang=eng

I would like to invite everyone who reads this to watch it, because it's beautiful and accurate. Also, it has London in it. :)

Then, for the last 40-minute block of the day, all the 800-some students were assembled in the basketball court of the school. Our mission president spoke, made everybody laugh, and committed them all to be like Nefi, not murmur, and read four pages a day. It was marvelous.

I got assigned to write the article we're going to submit to the Liahona about it, so that afternoon was even more of a whirlwhind for me. It was a combination of all the things I love: being a missionary, being a student and teacher, being a journalist. Oh, and singing in the choir! But I'm not sure yet if that goes in the list of things I love :)

Anyway, with all those things going on and all those identities in that moment, I didn't really know how to act or what to think. But I remember, in a moment when President was talking, looking out on the crowd, seeing the kids laugh and page through their scriptures, and just looking up at the open sky, seeing the rays of the setting sun through the clouds, and know God was looking down on Pajapita.

Maybe it's not how the Lord would have gone about making his restored gospel known to today's youth, but we are his imperfect hands here on this earth. And he was with us in this project, just like he is in ever lesson we teach or step we take if, that is, we look for him.

I know that God is a real being, with a glorified and perfect body of flesh and bone. Jesus Christ is his son, an equally perfect ressurrected being. They live far away, in a place inaccessible to us right now, but they love us and take care of us, guiding us with the influence of their Holy Spirit and the prophet they have called to prepare the world for Christ's second coming. It is by that same Holy Spirit that we come to know that Thomas S. Monson and the other men who have served in this dispensation are NOT false prophets, but are called of God and are fulfilling ancient prophesies. Prophesies that are found in the Bible, and weren't written just to be pretty words.

To Be Continued

There are so many things I would like to say to you: how the picture of Christ's Atonement was painted on my eyelids all Sunday morning, how two back-to-back testimony meetings made for a Spirit so strong it's impossible to describe, how a child in a tree guided us to a glowing family really excited to come to church, how a less active member named Hope spontaneously invited us to lunch, how I threw up in the street with four other missionaries and the stake president and his wife as witnesses and then laughed about it, how I got to divisiones with a sister from Peru and we talked about Christ all day, how we taught a woman who had never heard of the Trinity before, and mostly, how I just so much do love being a missionary...!

But today there wasn't even time to eat lunch or buy groceries. We hitchhiked in two trucks, one that sells water and one that was painted purple. (But you don't have to worry, Dad, I was respectively with 27 and 7 other missionaries.) Anyway, we have to go because we will be teaching a family about the repentance process in just a few minutes!

Please make the best choices, the ones that will make you eternally happy!

Love,

Sister Ison