Hola, hola, hola, to all the people I love the most,
I cannot even believe it is my fourth week here! I don´t know where the time goes, but I am at the halfway mark. Another beautiful week here in Mexico. We had two earthquakes again, but the strange thing is we never feel them. The alarm goes off and we have to stand on this blue circle outside, but no one ever feels anything. There are fireworks that go off all the time. I´ve heard
some of them are gunshots, but I prefer to think of them as fireworks.
My favorite part of this week was on Friday. Our teacher, Hermano Martinez, had us watch the beginning of the Chris William´s video, ¨´Forgiveness: My Burden Was Made Light.´ He was wanting us to learn how to teach from our hearts and emotions. So, we watched the beginning of the video and then he had some of us be missionaries and some act as Chris. Of course, I was already a weeping mess, and then he had Hermana Sargent and I be missionaries to Elder Garcia as if he were Chris and he had just lost his wife and 3 kids, but he did not have a knowledge of the gospel. We then watched another video about some NFL player and his wife who lost triplets during her pregnancy. We were then switched and I was with my companion and we had to teach Elder Mortenson. It was so hard. Elder Mortenson´s father passed away 5 years ago in a car accident, so the whole thing was all too real and hit him really hard. The three of us sat there in the corner of the classroom crying. I was getting frustrated with myself because I felt like everything I could tell him about the Plan of Salvation, the Atonement, and eternal families he had heard a million times before. My heart was so full of love for him and his family, and that´s when I realized it wasn´t my words that would ease a little part of his pain, it was the Spirit. All I could do was to be a vessel for the Savior´s perfect love to shine through and touch his heart, providing comfort and peace knowing that every single feeling inside of him has been felt completely by only one other person, Jesus Christ. I couldn´t pretend to know what it feels like to lost a parent or even a loved one, but I could feel the love our Father in Heaven and the Savior has for Elder Mortensen and all I could do was be a way for him to feel that. It just made me so excited to get to El Salvador and Belize and share this beautiful Gospel with the people, who have already stolen my heart. Elder Holland, in a devotional we watched, reminded us missionaries how this time is not ours, this mission is not ours. It is the Lord´s errand and we are merely his representatives. Everything I do right now is to prepare myself to be able to find the people the Savior needs me to find. It´s so exciting.
On another cheerful note, they served salmon last week, and even though I think I was the only one who tried it and it was nowhere near as perfect as yours, Mom, it was still wonderful and I was ever so grateful. Something in the food made a lot of people sick last week, like my poor companera, but I was lucky I didn´t catch the bug. I am in love with the kitchen and cleaning staff here! Mexican people are just so warm and friendly. We sit with Latina sisters at meals as often as we can to practice our Spanish, and they are always so patient with us and help us. Thank goodness for the beautiful hearts of the Hispanic people.
I love all of you so much and feel like the luckiest hermana in the world to have the support that I do. I know that Christ can be our very best friend if we let Him and that our Father in Heaven will pour out blessings (like salmon and a night with no mosquitoe bites) to us when we are obedient!
All my love,
Hermana Haynie
Sisters in her Zone at the CCM!
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