Mission Blog |
A dangerously acute account of 18 months in Nicaraguan Territory.
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...The Lion Sleeps tonight! So, I know I promised my mom that I would send pictures of the Cathedral, but we still didn’t get to go today. Because, we were too busy rocking our awesome new zone t-shirts!! They are quite fun, mostly because they have a Lion as cool as Disney’s Prince john on the front. We had a really great p-day as a zone, our last one with all of us together (next week is changes). And I promise, that if I’m still, in Leon, I WILL visit the Cathedral one day. But isn't a fuzzy picture of a bunch of sweaty missionaries so much better than a refined Catholic Church? I think so…None the less, moving on!
This is where my conflict of the day was: whether to title this letter as something else. This past week was crazy the Adele song “Fire to the Rain”. What’s –her-buckets “it’s going down. I’m yelling timber, you better move!!” or even Miley Cyrus’ “I(t) came in like a wrecking ball " would have been appropriate. And here is why…. This past Monday, which I guess would imply that a week ago today, we finished a lovely lesson with some members and then went back home. We walked in, used the bathroom, knelt to pray, and then began making our plans for the following day. We were literally just sitting down to get started when everything started shaking. I knew it was an earthquake, but I was quite surprised because it was MUCH stronger than the previous one I had experienced in Guatemala. My companion and I both looked at each other. She spoke first (in her cute little accent) J “Oh my Gosh, my Gosh, What do we do?” The following was my thought process: What do we do? Isn't she supposed to know what to do? She has more time in the mission AND she’s from Guatemala. I think that we should probably go under a doorway or something. Or maybe under these tables. Oh wait a second, that might be bad. I think I read somewhere once that if you’re under a table and it gets smashed, you get smashed too. Plus, who would trust these old tables with missionary signatures from the 90’s? All of this happened in about a 7 second time frame, the whole time the earth was moving to and fro. I would tell you that I wasn't scared, but I think that would be lying because I had liters of adrenaline pumping through me. And still everything was shaking. My companion asked again, “What do we do?” Forgive me for the following thought that popped into my head: What would Spock do? Of course, I immediately repented and then I knew exactly what to do. “We pray” I said to Hermana Gonzalez. So we knelt back down on the ground (which is quite difficult to do when it is moving so fervently) and we offered up our fears to our Heavenly Father, that He might replace them with faith. We felt such peace the moment we started praying that we didn't cease to pray when the ground stopped moving. We weren't hurt in the slightest, nor did we have any doubt in our minds of the love of our Heavenly Father. I learned a lot of lessons in those short two minutes, but the one I’d like to leave with you is, when life gets a little quaky, don’t think logic, think prayer; don’t think ‘Spock’, think ‘Jesus’, ‘Savior’, ‘Redeemer’. But it just gets better…. :) On Saturday, the Elders were blessed with someone desiring to enter the waters of baptism. We come too, showing our moral support and bringing our investigators so that they could see a baptism and have their Baptismal Interview (Yeah!) The service was beautiful and promptly afterwards, Elder Pozuelos began the interviews. He no sooner began when it started to rain. Of course it always starts out as a sprinkle and three seconds later it’s a down pour. It was still raining about an hour later when Elder Pozuelos finished, but other elements had been added. The thunder was so loud; the lightning was lighting up the chapel for the few of us still there; and the wind was slating the rain in at a fierce angle. We, however, were enjoying the safety of the chapel that is, until a small trickle of water came pouring through one of the light fixtures. We turned off the light and put a can under the dripping water. Oh how we underestimated the power and force of the Heavens. Not three minutes later, we were calmly chatting when whole parts of the ceiling crashed down under the pressure of the water from above. Buckets and gallons and drums of water poured down on us and began to spread throughout every room in the chapel. The only accurate way for you to picture it will be to imagine a movie scene from “Poseidon” or “Titanic” (cue Celine Dion: Near….Far…Wherever you are). We grabbed every trash basket, mop and broom in the church and went to work, trying to stop the water from getting higher than our ankles. We kept at it for a good two hours until the downpour let up and turned into a light sprinkle. We were all soaked, but the chapel was mostly water free and ready for church the next day. Now, I would like to share a scripture with you: 2 Nephi 27: 1-2 “But, behold in the last days or in the days of the Gentiles—they will be drunken with iniquity and all manner of abominations= and when that day shall come, they shall be visited of the Lord of Hosts, with thunder and earthquake, and with a great noise, and with storms, and with tempest, and with the flame of devouring fire” My point in sharing this is to call your attention to the fact that so many events have happened and are happening that have been foretold by the Holy Prophets. Rejoice, O Zion! The Lord thy God reigneth! And He’s coming real soon! I pray that we will all prepare ourselves for the adventure ahead both spiritually and physically for no man knoweth the day nor the hour when the son of man will come, but I’m sure I’d like to be ready when he does. Love, Hermana Beatty PS I thought about throwing in a “R U REaDy”? Throwback to the days of running for Hurricane High Exec J
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November 2015
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