April 27 in Carlos A. Carillo

First off, sorry I don’t have a lot of time again. Seems to be a trend. Haha yeah but anyways literally nothing new happened this week. I feel kind of at a loss for words. Some weeks are just like this though. Anyways changes were today but as expected, Elder J. and I are still together.

So this may be my last 6 weeks here in Carrillo and then I could be going to a new place again! I wanna make this last six weeks as good as it can be, and so me and my companion are going to start skipping language study in order to work an hour more in the morning (we’re both basically fluent anyways), and we’re going to make a really hard change for two gringos: we’re going to speak pure Spanish in the street. Along with some other changes, and we should have a great week! Anyways, that’s all this week, I’ll send more next week!

About Carlos A. Carillo: They have shops here all over the place that sell fruit water. They basically take water and fruit, put it in a blender, and then it’s done. It’s the most amazing thing ever. There are very few wild parrots here. There is a grove of large palms nearby where some live, but we almost never see them. I’ve seen them once in three months. Lots of people own pet parrots, and I’m talking the BIG green ones, and they’re like, almost as big as a small cat. Bigger than rats. They almost all cuss at everything in Spanish. 

April 20 in Carlos A. Carillo

So this week I don’t have much time either. Sorry. This is the last week before transfers and last P-day with Elder H. He’ll get transferred this next Monday. So we wanna have lots of fun. Anyways this week’s been great. 

We're focusing on enduring to the end. That means keeping the commandments and going to the temple. Going to the temple is very important. A temple is a sign of the true church of god. In the Bible they all had temples. But many people misunderstand what a temple is. They think it’s just a chapel. That’s not the case. It’s a more sacred building, a literal house of God.

The temple is the only place where families can be "sealed for time and all eternity." Just as we have local laws, God also has laws. Just like you must be married to have all the rights and privileges that come with a family here on earth, so you must be married to have all the rights and privileges in heaven. But then it gets a little different. Heaven’s laws are higher than earthly laws. And they must be obeyed or you cannot receive the blessings. Here, maybe you can start a family without getting married. Not recommended, and often leads to poverty. In heaven you CANNOT have a family without the law. You must be bound by heaven’s law, and then you may receive those blessings after this life.

That’s why in Peter (New Testament), it talks about doing baptisms for the dead, because it is necessary to be baptized and then sealed in order to have this family for forever. The people who didn’t have the opportunity in this life to take on the covenants with God, can do it in the next, through their relatives. That’s what the spirit of Elijah means in the last chapter of the Old Testament, that all people who ever lived will have the opportunity to have these blessings and be an eternal family. 

April 13 in Carlos A. Carillo

Sorry that I haven’t sent out very many emails or anything like that. Today we’re going to play Risk at 2 and we just finished playing Monopoly. (I won because elder Hourigan forfeited. :)) Anyways so I’m kinda throwing yall under the bus for a board game. Hahaha naw, just kidding, it’s just that as missionaries, we don’t have a ton of time to relax, and sometimes we all just need to.

This week I had one experience that I’d like to share. We met a woman named M. Anyways M. is about 50 and there’s something very special about her: she’s blind. She lives in a tiny little house that’s barely more than a chicken coup with two distant family members. She was a referral from a member who doesn’t go to church so often, and well, we’ve gotten to know her pretty well. She was a very independent woman in her 20’s. She didn’t want kids or a family or anything. Then, she changed in her early 30’s. She got pregnant. (I doubt she was married, people here rarely are.) And then, her child was stillborn. Over the pregnancy, her eyesight gradually got worse and worse. Right after she gave birth, she lost her vision completely. And then she was left with nothing, and came to be where she is today.

We taught her how to pray, starting with teaching about Heavenly Father, and she prays all the time now. She says she likes to pray partly because when she prays, she remembers the color of the skies. The other thing she likes is how she feels when she prays. She says that from the first time we had a prayer with her, she just feels so beautiful. M. wants to come to church.