Nearing the End

January 16, 2012

Family!!!

I really am so thrilled to be in La Falda right now and to be with my companion Hermana Masters. I truly am happy every moment of every day. We just work hard and have a way good time! So it has been an amazing week - like always...

Monday - we head off to work and to go pass for this reference from a member and we find out that he works in a store, so we go in to the store awkwardly pretending we wanted to buy something and scope out the scene. Trying not to be too obvious that we were two white missionary preachers, we strike up conversation with some worker and as he walks away for a second, I reach into this fruit basket to check out this weird lookin fruit that I have never seen. As it is in my hands, and I am observing it, the worker casually comes over and is like - hey you can’t touch that....I was like cool why not - there is no sign or anything….and then five seconds later I figure out exactly why he told me not to grab it. My hands started to burn and I look down and my hands are just covered in like these little tiny white prickles. I freaked out! I looked like a crazy person just screaming in Spanish/English - a little mix of both - and just throwing my hands around trying not to touch anything or the prickles would go in deeper. It was so funny - everyone was just laughing and like didn’t even care that it was so painful - haha – luckily we got to take each of the stickers out and still had time to go out and work.

Tuesday - best day ever! First of all, it was pouring rain!!!! It was way crazy like in the streets - flood status - and of course five minutes before leaving the apartment, we had no idea it would be so hard and intense, so we had like nothing to cover up and got soaking wet. We bought some candy and taught this worker guy and then went out and preached in the rain. Sadly, no one wanted to attend us - even this family of like 5, and we came in because they said ¨pasen¨ and immediately regretted it seeing 2 awk white chics just soaking wet in their house and were like oh wait, never mind, and wanted us to leave since we were soaked....haha - it was sad but super funny. We loved preaching and teaching in the rain even though it was a huge pain. As we were walking to a lesson, my sandal completely broke and was like flopping everywhere just a complete mess in the rain….so I had to like march to keep it from not tripping myself – hahaha - we were just along the main road just chipper as frick, laughing with my broken shoe sitch and waving and talking to everyone. Luckily my comp had this headband situation so she wrapped it around my foot so it would stay and we continued on. We had the best lesson with Estela that night! We took a member and they let us in right when we showed up because it was still pouring rain and the member we took is this like grandma diva - ha - she is so funny, and was such a trooper to go with us in the rain but she wasn’t too stoked about getting wet. So we get in and we first play games with the little kids and Bebby-the member- is like wild and playing games with us and we were all just laughing and it was a blast. The house is super little and humble and she kept getting up and like dancing – hahaha - it was great. Then we taught the plan of salvation and Estela loved it!!!! She asked a lot of questions and really felt so good about it all. It was one of the most warm and loving lessons I have ever been in. Just such a happy and warm feeling just filling ever corner of that little cement humble home. She is really excited about her baptism and said she is praying a lot, reading everything we give her, and she loved church when she went!!! She is golden!!

Saturday - such a good day! We are teaching this huge family of like 9, and they are such a party family and they were all there in the afternoon and we bonded. I honestly feel like they are my family!! Three of them have baptism dates and are reading and praying. Right before we left after we finished the lesson my comp asked them if we would do anything to help them and Marta the grandma was like-yes – you can help me dye my hair! Love it! So we dyed her hair and just chatted about life and the family and she seriously is just one of my favorite people ever!! Also we went to visit Estela so we could just see how she is doing and teach her a little bit and when we got to her house the little grandkids told us she had to leave. We were sad and just decided to write her a note, and told him to give it to her and we would pass another day. After we walked pretty far away, the kid came chasing after us and told us to come back and teach his grandma, because she wanted to see us, and had time. Miracle! So we come in and she is just GLOWING! She is so happy and just full of light and couldn’t stop smiling. We asked her how everything was going and she told us that she prayed and asked God if this was the true church and if she should get baptized and she got an answer!!!!! She said it was such an amazing experience and began to cry after her prayer and it wasn’t tears of sadness but of peace and love. We were SO happy and told her about the Holy Ghost and how she is recognizing it’s feelings and how she is getting answers. We taught her the restoration after that and the spirit was just so intense and at the end we both just looked at her and told her we loved her so much and all began to cry and we were just so grateful to be a part of her journey of finding the truth. She is so amazing!!! We are so happy!!!

So many times throughout my whole mission I just desire so much for any of you out there who read my emails; family, friends, strangers, whoever, to literally and actually know what I have been through each week……to understand what I have seen, felt, heard, learned, loved, enjoyed, missed, suffered, and I honestly wish any of you, if you have been on a mission or not, could know what my mission has been like and what it has meant to me. Since the day I got on my knees to ask my Heavenly Father in fervent prayer if I should serve a mission, and through receiving my very clear and undeniable answer, I have thanked God every day for getting me out here, and for helping me to make that big decision in my life. That day has truly changed me forever. That one simple answer I received for God has blessed me incredibly each day since then, and has formed me into the person that I know God and my Savior Jesus Christ want me to become.

A few weeks ago we had a zone meeting and there was a senior missionary couple from the states who had just arrived and are way cute. They both got up and introduced themselves and the husband knew a little Spanish but the wife knew close to nothing. They both got up there so humbly and literally wept, thanking each of us for our sacrifice of coming out here and doing what we do in the mission each day. It was so humbling and I was so grateful to see these people that are so much older and wiser than we are, and showing us that it truly is so hard for them as well to be in the mission. They expressed that since they have been in the mission themselves now, and have seen what the work is like, they can feel for their kids, grandkids, and other missionaries they know.

I cannot ask anyone out there, old or young, to come with me step by step and know exactly what I have been through in the mission, or what I have learned. As I come to the end of my mission, I have come to know with certainty that as much as we want others to understand exactly what we feel, and experience in this life, there is truly only one human being that has come to this earth that can say he actually knows what it was like because he has literally been there and suffered that, and he is our Savior Jesus Christ. As I have cried, and vented with members, strangers, investigators, companions, and inactives over the stress, hardships, trials, things that are unfair, burdens, disappointments, and heartbreaks that approach us in life, and in the mission, I realized that as much as we can look someone in the eye and give them love and comfort, we truly do not know where they have gone and what they have been through. Only Jesus Christ, our redeemer, has been to that low place, and is the only one that can help us up. He is the way and the life. He is the living water. He is our light and our hope. He is the one. I can testify with all my heart that Jesus Christ lives and he loves us. With every little thing I have been through in the mission, I know he has suffered and had the same experiences and through his help and his Atonement for me, I was and I am able to always go to him and to receive that burden lifted and to progress and become stronger. No one knows where I have been and no one knows what I have felt, but Jesus Christ. This mission not only changed me, but saved my life. I will never forget the things I have come to learn here in the mission, and I will treasure them in this life and the life to come. I owe everything that is ahead of me in this mortal life to these past 18 months, and I honestly want to thank each person out there for being such great examples and supports to me to get me out here. This mission means the world to me, and through each day of it, I have grown such a powerful testimony of my Savior Jesus Christ. He is real and he walks among us and is always with us if we accept him. I love him and I love his gospel, and I will dedicate the rest of my life to serving him faithfully and doing everything I possibly can to love and uplift others. I still have so much to learn, and I am still so imperfect - but through my weaknesses and humility I know that I am made strong. I love you all and I cannot thank you enough for all you have done for me.

Love Hermana Pond

Belly Dancing, Spiders, and Sunsets - Joy in 2012

Monday January 9, 2012

Family! How is everyone and how is life? I just hope everyone is so dang happy!!! Life is good!!!! All I have to say is…ARABE DANCING…

Hahaha – good story: So there is this member that I like adore and worship who is close to my age and a cute little newly wed, and we just bond and love each other so much. She fed us dinner this week on Saturday, and we show up to eat, and she not only has an ASADO for us but also blasts a Shakira song and comes out in like a belly dance costume-because its like her hobby here (in Argentina it’s a big deal, and very popular) - and she just starts busting out and dancing for us! It was SO bomb. I just loved it. We have been bugging her forever to show us and she finally did it and it was even better because she is like 4 months pregnant so she has this cute belly, and was like moving it around dancing all glam. Hahaha - it was way fun! It was such a good day!

Oh and P.S . - we are in Argentina right – and you never know what is going to happen next - so one night we are chatting on the phone with someone and just laying on our beds and I look down and this huge spider – like HUGE - is crawling up my leg. I FREAKED! Then my companion was all nervous, and is laying there for 2 minutes and I look above her and a huge spider is like about to fall and make a web on her FACE! It was way intense and super poor and ghetto. We laugh about it though. Also we are walking to a cita one day and I am just like conversing with my companion and she is like ¨wait!¨ and I am like cool what - and she is like open your mouth and I had a huge bug on my tooth…..gross! haha we are so Argentine love it-just bugs everywhere……in our beds and flying into our mouths and its cool because it doesn’t even phase us anymore - we just laugh about it now. That is when you know you are getting old in the mission…..When you go into your humble little shower that has no shower curtain, and is like right by the toilet, barely any water coming out, and you have to use a huge human size squeegee to clean up the water that sprays all over the floor – and while you are using it a huge bug is crawling up it. Instead of screaming and considering the fact that you are in such a poor and lame condition, you calmly and happily acknowledge the fact that you actually have hot water that day. Love life and love Argentina. It is really humbling and truly, on the daily, you are counting your many blessings. Family and friends-please…count your MANY blessings: carpet, air conditioning, real showers, good food, functioning toilets, nice clothes, clean houses, apartments, cars, real mops, etc.

Also-we have been treated pretty good in this country so far-no one has really given us a hard time or mocked and ridiculed us for our religión, and one day we were walking in the street and some remi driver (taxi driver?) guy sticks out his head as we walk by and screams at us super loud and tells us we are going to hell….haha over it. So we are driving to look for investigators on Sunday and while we are driving in this remi we realize its the SAME guy. Oh my gosh, I was so scared for him to say anything stupid to the investigator so I tried just ask him about his family and life but he still was super into talking about religión. In the end, he ended up being super nice and respecting us and as we got into the church in relief society safely with the investigator, he like pokes his head in and gives my companion her change and shouts, ¨Bendiciones!!!¨ haha it was super funny!

I am really happy right now. We are finally seeing a little fruits from our intense labors. Like always, we had a ton of opposition and trials this week and a ton of people that we were teaching and we felt were promising, all dropped us! I could not believe how much this was happening to me at so close to the end of my missión and it was really frustrating me and really getting me down. After a lot of prayers and really healthy good chats and communication with my companion, we sorted things out and just went out and got after it. We know that we were being tried and just had to keep fighting and working hard. We had a miracle!!! We found this golden lady Estela and she is super doing well at her commitments and seems really interested. We went one day with the elders this week and she accepted a baptism date! She also came to church all three hours on Sunday and loved it, and the members were really good to her! Also one of my favorite investigators, Javier, finally got work off and came to church and loved it! Also, our missión president was there with his wife - no pressure right! Haha but it was good and I taught the principles of the gospel class and the lesson was way good! They were both impressed and left really happy. Success!! So it was a really good week. One day, we were sitting on a curb as the sun was setting in this cute town, with all these colored cobblestone houses lining the road as it curves up a mountain, and as we taught this tattooed shirtless man and his wife outside, with the breeze on my face, and as we testified of the gospel and promised them that families are forever, I was just so content and so happy to be here. I love these little tender mercies in the mission and these happy moments where I just look around me, put everything on pause, take it in, and love every second of it. It feels so good to be here.

My companion and I have learned a ton this week about humility, and patience. They truly go hand in hand. I adore and cherish the talk by Uchtdorf about patience from the May 2010 ensign. I love in the talk when he says,

¨Without patience, we cannot please God; we cannot become perfect. Indeed, patience is a purifying process that refines understanding, deepens happiness, focuses action, and offers hope for peace.

Patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can—working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well! Impatience, on the other hand, is a symptom of selfishness. It is a trait of the self-absorbed. It arises from the all-too-prevalent condition called “center of the universe” syndrome, which leads people to believe that the world revolves around them and that all others are just supporting cast in the grand theater of mortality in which only they have the starring role.¨

When we are impatient and always wanting what we want now, we are selfish. We are not trusting God and knowing that his timing is different than ours. We need to do everything we can to follow the counsel we find in Col 3:12:

“Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;”

And in James 4:10: “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”

We are the ¨elect of God!¨ We must come to the depths of humility and know that only through patience and trusting in Him, we will be able to grow ourselves, reach our goals and highest potential, and feel that God is pleased and happy with us for what we have done. We cannot control the universe. We cannot control how anyone acts or feels and we can definitely not control outcomes. We can do our best, do our part, and always know that God is going to bless us, but we really need to let things go and stop worrying. No one is perfect and God does not expect us to do everything. He knows how life works and he understands. He is so happy for us and loves us for everything we do for him and his son Jesús christ. Let us accept our weaknesses and learn from them. Let us be patient in all things so we can understand when Uchdorf says, ¨ Our Heavenly Father knows what good parents come to understand over time: if children are ever going to mature and reach their potential, they must learn to wait.¨

In the new ensign from last conference, I loved when Elder Cook said,

¨There are many kinds of challenges. Some give us necessary experiences. Adverse results in this mortal life are not evidence of lack of faith or of an imperfection in our Father in Heaven’s overall plan. The refiner’s fire is real, and qualities of character and righteousness that are forged in the furnace of affliction perfect and purify us and prepare us to meet God.¨

Even though patience and waiting can be hard at times, family and friends, we are preparing ourselves to meet God someday. Our time is now to learn everything we need to learn to become perfected and enter into our loving fathers presence someday. It takes time and waiting to reach potential and greatness. We must never get discouraged. Although we do not understand sometimes, the mighty creator of this wonderful and marvelous universe does get it and has a purpose for it….specifically for you and others of his children. I invite you all this week to remember the scripture in D and C 123:17,

17 Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.

I love you all and cherish everything you do for this gospel, for your children, your friends, your communities, the missionaries in your area, the missión work, and for our most merciful and kind Heavenly Father. Keep up the good work!

LOVE HERMANA POND

Christmas Time!