Obrando en la Viña: The Mission: So We Can All Be Psychologists When We Grow Up

Intercambios in Esperanza

So this week...I felt like sending two letters. Haha. Merry Christmas!:)

#1___________

Sometimes miracles spring out of nowhere... It's impossible to understand them; all you can do is give thanks.

"Loreto's gold," Hermana Hansen said. "You'll love her."

Loreto. Mystery gold. Two weeks pass.

"Loreto! She sure is great! I'm glad I finally met her."

Loreto. All she wants is to get baptized already. But she works SO much.
Loreto. She disappeared for three weeks--she went to Rancagua. Her fecha fell.
Transfers.
Four weeks pass.

"Loreto! Oh my word, how are you?! We've missed you!
"I'm good! I moved!"

We went. She's on medical leave from work, with a swollen ankle and a bad case of depression...

"Come in, hermanas. It's good to see you."
I went to Esperanza on exchanges. She accepted my companion's invitation to be baptized.

Wednesday. Thursday.
Friday. The law of chastity.
"Loreto, will you live the law of chastity, then?"
"Yes! My boyfriend and I aren't gonna get back together anytime soon... Okay, yeah. I just deleted the friends that post bad stuff on Wassap."
The word of wisdom.
"Loreto, will you live the word of wisdom?"
"Yeah! Tea and coffee...that'll be easy. Alcohol...that'll be a little harder... But you know what--I'll do it. Yep. No more alcohol--I'll just have to say no!"

She got ready and left her house for the first time in weeks to go to the Branch activity.

Saturday. Sunday. If she doesn't come to church today, her fecha's gonna fall...
But she CAME. Loreto and her son Diego arrived during the Sacrament and stayed all three hours.
"Can we stop by after lunch?"
"Yep!"

Three hours later.

"Loreto...what, then, is the Sabbath day?"
"We shouldn't make purchases on Sundays or watch sports or make other people work. But we should go to church and do things that help remind us of God."
"Loreto, will you keep the Sabbath day holy, entonces?"
"Yep! It looks like we won't be buying anything else on Sundays from now on, Diego."

Fast Forward. We teach the 10 commandments. She agrees to keep every one.
We teach tithing. She gasps.
"But 10 percent?! That's so much! How am I going to be able to get by?!"
We promise blessings. We share our testimonies... She gets excited.
"You know what, hermanas...yeah. It's true. When I look around at all the blessings with which He has blessed me just this past week--Diego has made so many good friends at church, and I am up and making my bed, getting dressed, and leaving the house, miracles that weeks of trips to the psychologist haven't been able to make happen for me. And we have this house, and a warm stove to heat it...and we have light and water and a car that runs and takes us all the places we need to go... I guess if Heavenly Father asks 10%, it's a small price to pay to thank Him for all those blessings."
"And to receive even more," we add." "Okay," she says. "I'll do it."

Fast Forward. We teach the law of the fast. She gasps.
"24 hours without eating?! What suffering!"
We promise blessings. We bear our testimonies of the countless blessings that come when we fast.. How, just weeks ago, we had fasted for rain in a drought-plagued country, and it rained for the first time in a year before we'd even ended that fast. (De hecho, I fasted that same weekend for an experience to share with the people we teach about the miracle of fasting. God answers prayers.:))
She grinned and said, "Okay, I'll do it. I want to fast for my dad."
Diego is 14. He was baptized 3 years ago. Diego: "I am so excited for my mom to get baptized! I'm going to do everything I can to help her keep these commandments. I want to wear a suit to the baptism on Sunday."

Loreto has more faith than just about anyone I have ever met. We teach a commandment and she immediately makes the changes necessary in her life in order to be able to keep it. She doesn't question--she just does. That is the mark of a true testimony, and it is the evidence of true trust in God. I am grateful for miracles. Just like Romi, Loreto fell out of the sky. Heavenly Father blesses us in ways we sure don't deserve--but I am so grateful to know her and to give thanks for her example. I want that kind of faith. I want to accept without questioning. Loreto will be baptized next Sunday, July 26th. She can hardly wait. Neither can we.

#2_____________________

I am not a patient person. I get stressed when plans fall through--when dreams fall short. I live a life of tension, because I live in constant worry. I forgot what it means to trust in God.

That's just how I am... And then my Father, He called me on a mission.

Fast Forward 14 months. I'm doing my best to change. I want to be a patient person.

Mauricio did not come to church yesterday. He made the wrong choice...but the Spirit whispered to me that I shouldn't try to convince him. We just let him go.

Patience is more than waiting. It is more than simply pacing a hole in the floor or glancing every 5 seconds at your watch or waiting outside the bathroom. Patience is more than waiting for the babysitter to arrive or for the kids to fall asleep or for the clock to strike midnight. It is more than the anxious anticipation of the birth of a baby or the passing of a loved one.

Patience is not just the passing of time. It is what we do with the time that is passing.

True patience is accepting the agency of others. It is the peace in the midst of affliction, the eternal perspective, the waiting well...the trust in God's promises and the enduring to the end. And it is learning to love... It is realizing that we need not simply wait---what we can also choose to do.

Sometimes it's hard to watch someone you love progress...only to turn around and make the choices that set them back and detain them in their progress. But I suppose that that must be how it has always been for God... A loving Father who does everything He can to show us the right way...and then all that remains to do is sit back and watch as we hearken not to His counsels and stubbornly demand that "we really do know best."
Sometimes we cannot control the decisions of others. We cannot control the decisions of our children...and we cannot control the decisions of our friends.
But patience...patience is accepting them. It is being willing to wait until they make the right ones.

Neal A. Maxwell explains my feelings in a way that I cannot do on my own.

"Some of us have been momentarily wrenched by the sound of a train whistle spilling into the night air—and we have been inexplicably subdued by the mix of feelings this evokes. Or perhaps we have been beckoned by a lighted cottage across a snow-covered meadow at dusk. Or we have heard the warm and drawing laughter of children at a nearby playground. Or we have been tugged at by the strains of congregational singing from a nearby church. Or we have encountered a particular fragrance which has awakened memories deep within us of things which once were.

"In such moments we have felt a deep yearning—as if we were temporarily outside something to which we actually belonged and of which we so much wanted again to be a part.

"There are spiritual equivalents of these moments. Such seem to occur most often when time touches eternity. In these moments, we feel a longing closeness—but we are still separate.

"The partition which produces this paradox is something we call the veil, a partition the presence of which requires our patience.

"We define the veil as the border between mortality and eternity; it is also a film of forgetting which covers the memories of earlier experiences. This forgetfulness will be lifted one day, and on that day we will see forever."

When we teach Mauricio, I can almost reach beyond the veil. I can feel heaven close to me...because my spirit knows his, and he brings back memories of a world that I can almost seem to remember. ...It's like spiritual deja-vú.

Sometimes I don't understand everything. I don't understand why our Father hasn't yet answered his questions. I don't understand why He hasn't yet answered His prayers.
But I trust Him.
And I will choose to be patient.

Mauricio chose not to come to church yesterday. He made the wrong choice. But the Spirit whispered to me as I called him...that I shouldn't try to convince him. That I should simply let him make his choice.

But he prayed for the first time in front of us on Friday (when he lost at rock-paper-scissors)...and it was a beautiful prayer.

I have faith in Mauricio. I know he'll get there.

"What happens, Hermana," he asked me as we were walking out of the church on Friday night, "if all this comes to an end and nothing happened? If you shake my hand to say goodbye and I never got an answer? What happens if it was all a waste?"

"Don't worry," I said, "Because it won't be that way.
...I have faith in you, Mauricio."

He just looked at me.
"Really?" He asked.

I said it because it's true.

All things will work together for your experience.
After the trial of patience comes the blessings.
Patience helps us grow.
Patience, patience, patience...

And when our dirty toddler finger touches the glass... When we press our nose against the veil... I know that Heaven's closer than we think.

I know He hears our prayers.
And I know He answers.

I trust Him.

Hold on tight until the miracles.

Love you all!
Hermana Sanford