Querido Familia y Amigos:
Rainy season "officially" started this week with an amazing thunderstorm. Lightning hit closer to us than I remember ever happening to me. Yesterday Dad and I walked to Paiz, a local grocery store and associated small mall -- in the rain. We used los paraguas, or umbrellas. These words are like our English "sunset": a sun is setting, so it is a sunset. Paraguas are "para (for) agua (water)." A "parasol" is actually a Spanish word: para (for) sol (sun).
Rainy season "officially" started this week with an amazing thunderstorm. Lightning hit closer to us than I remember ever happening to me. Yesterday Dad and I walked to Paiz, a local grocery store and associated small mall -- in the rain. We used los paraguas, or umbrellas. These words are like our English "sunset": a sun is setting, so it is a sunset. Paraguas are "para (for) agua (water)." A "parasol" is actually a Spanish word: para (for) sol (sun).
I've had two lovely weeks in the temple. It's good for my ego that few people want to play the organ, although there are others of us who occasionally do, now that I've started a trend. I have continuous and profuse compliments for my efforts. Yesterday a sister approached me to talk about her difficulties with her fingers. I thought she might ask me to teach. Wouldn't that be great, for music as well as my increasing Spanish! These weeks demonstrate a remarkable answer to prayer, especially after the hectic week we had at home for the wedding. In our SLC ward Sunday Sacrament meeting, Bob Fotheringham spoke about using the Savior's Atonement to help us with things beyond our own strength. He said we could pray to Heavenly Father, asking for Christ's grace to make up the difference between where we are and where we need to be. I spent very few hours per week in the temple before we came home. In contrast, I was there for all my shifts the first week, and would have been the second week if I hadn't been sick on Wednesday. |
Monday night we hosted FHE in our apartment. It was our English group's "despedida" or farewell FHE for the Eberhards. They have been our next-door neighbours since we arrived, and will be sorely missed. Hermana Eberhard was the first woman I saw in the temple when the Burks were giving us our welcome tour. I was struck by her tranquility and decided I would like to be just like her. Since then I've used three different images to portray how I would like to be in the temple.
Fun pictures from the temple grounds, following Jonathan and Renelle's wedding:
What a lovely time we had with all of you! Thanks so much for your support and attendance to all the events and the precious moments we had visiting. |
Spending so much time, as we do weekly, in the Lord's house, makes our hearts tender and our thoughts often deep. I have learned from my experiences here that we are truly at an apex between heaven and earth, mortality and eternity, when we enter the temples of the Lord. A scripture that has touched me deeply and that I am currently memorizing, is 2 Nephi 25: 23, from the Book of Mormon:
For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.
I can personally testify of the power of this grace of Christ, as I talked of above in my increased strength. The scripture continues in verse 26:
And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.
Love to you all from the woman who is proud to be your mother and your friend:
Hermana Brubaker
Missionary Mom
Guatemala City LDS Temple Mission
For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.
I can personally testify of the power of this grace of Christ, as I talked of above in my increased strength. The scripture continues in verse 26:
And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.
Love to you all from the woman who is proud to be your mother and your friend:
Hermana Brubaker
Missionary Mom
Guatemala City LDS Temple Mission