It's been awhile...

So it's been awhile...
However, today although I’m not going to have a P-DAY I made sure to write. 

My life recently has become INSANE. When I say insane, I mean insane.

Such as today, today we started a new program for the food for the missionaries here in Buenaventura where two sisters will cook everyday for the missionaries. They receive the money and are in charge. Although they have to do some insane cleaning methods, such as washing all vegetables in Clorox and then rinsing them off with boiled water. We now can only eat rice 2 times a week.
All day yesterday I was in charge of making the breakfast and lunch plans for the sister missionaries.

Today in the morning I had to teach the sister’s from the ward how to make french toast... Which was awesome and then I had to go to the supermarket with them to buy all the food that they would need to make the lunches this week, something that Colombian’s NEVER do. They always buy what they need the day of from the little window shop closest to their door. Then we had to move all the food to the house of each of the sister’s in the ward that will be cooking for us.  As we finished up all of the arrangements with the food the office called me and told me I had to go to the city center to deposit money for the new home for the sister missionaries. From where I live to the city center is like from Medford to Ashland and I’ve got to go on a bus. Off we went to wait an hour in line for the bus all the time freaking out cause I have to write my family and I have appointments at 5… Just another day in a life of a missionary, no big deal.

We are working like normal on P-Day because we are on our way once again to Cali this week, Thursday and Friday. We have 5 people that are getting ready for their baptism’s this Saturday and also the other people that want us to visit them. 

WE ARE A LITTLE TIGHT ON TIME!

I love Buenaventura; things are so hectic all the time because well, everyone wants to listen to us. It’s incredible; honestly I never knock on doors because people walk up to me in the street and say, “Hey when can you visit me?" and we take out our agendas and are like, tell us the time and place. Honestly we are booking people out one week in advance because the time just doesn’t work. We are very much working in the field of the Lord.

Brandon is doing awesome; he goes to church every week in a shirt and tie that we bought him. His cousins, Joselin and Natalia are getting ready to be baptized. Natalia will be baptized this Saturday and hopefully Joselin. Joselin’s mom doesn’t want her to be baptized because she believes that the Sabbath day is Saturday, although we have explained many times using her scriptures in Acts 20 how the apostles changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday to respect the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but she is one of those ladies who contradicts herself in her stubborn pride. However I know that in these next few weeks Joeselin will get baptized, and eventually Joselin's mom as well.

I love this gospel. It is the only place where the family is promised to be together forever. The same gospel that Jesus Christ had established when he was here on the Earth. 

This last week, we were moving the sister missionaries, helping President and Sister Prícoli get around Buenaventura. We were also getting all of our incredible investigators ready for baptism.

I love my mission and more than anything I have loved my time here in Buenaventura. 

Everyday I am allowed to see and feel the presence of the Lord in families that have never had spiritual moments together before in their lives. Families that are brought together through the true and everlasting words of our Savior Jesus Christ. It’s incredible to see just how one prayer every night as a family can move grown men to cry. How one humble prayer on your knees can mend the broken heart. How easy it is for us to find God. However, at times we can be SO stubborn to never even try to talk with him and bring him into our lives. He is waiting for us, always like a nervous parent waiting with the phone in hand for the call from their child far away. There he waits, if we can only kneel down, and say, Father. 

The mission has changed me in ways that I never new possible. Before the mission I said I believed in God, I understood that God existed but it always kind of made me squeamish to talk about God. I always would find ways to change the subject. The mission has made me understand the importance of God in our lives, the importance of his son and our redeeming Savior Jesus Christ. I understand, why? Because I feel it now. With every family that has come closer to Christ, I have seen Him. I see Him in the eyes of every broken family that has found one another again, every drug addict that has left his past, every couple that lived in a destroyed marriage that now lives with a renewed understanding of Love both in marriage and for God. 

That is why I say that I have seen Christ. 

I have seen His love for every one of His children, every one of us. 

I have seen His compassion and the truth of His everlasting atonement, His sacrifice that He made for us as He bled from every pour in Gethsemane. 

The atonement of Christ does not only cover for sins, but for all feelings of abandonment, sadness, mourning, and just those sheer feelings of depression. 

The atonement of Christ covers for all feelings, He understands everything we feel, He understands all of our needs, He understands how to help us. He will comfort us, if we but ask. 

The greatest men of the world are those on their knees. 

Trust in the Savior of the World

Let the miracles fall one after the other over you

I love you all 

I’ll talk to you next week with more time hopefully 

Elder Lyle