July 6, 2015

This week we had a Family Home Evening with a less active family. (In my area there are two sets of elders) The other elders prepared a lesson to share with this family on the Atonement. They had a cake prepared and went around asking all of us who would like a piece. My companion and I raised our hands of course not knowing what the lesson was yet. All of the kids raised their hands and were getting super excited. One elder counted how many people were in the room with their hands in the air. Then he looked at his comp. and asked, "Will you do 10 push ups so that Sister Martinez can eat her piece of cake?" "Yeah sure, no problem!" Joyfully replied the other elder. "Mari, do you want your piece of cake still?" "Not if he has to do push ups for it." "Alright, Elder, Will you do 10 push ups so that Mari doesn´t eat her piece of cake?" With a displeased look on his face, he got down and started to do the push ups. We went of with everyone else at the tabgle and by the end of the night, this elder was dying. Sweating from everywhere and just in pain. The point of this lesson is to obviously show the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made for us. When we choose not to except what he did for us, he gets a little sad because he still had to suffer for each ad everyone of us. During the entire lesson I could remember very cleary a devotional from Seminary that was about a boy who had to do the exact thing for donuts and his seminary class. We have been trying to teach and share a lot about the Atonement these last few weeks and I love it. I can feel the spirit so strongly when we testify of what Jesus Christ did for us.

I have a strong testimony of the Atonement of Christ and I love my savior. I know that he loves me too.

This 4th of July was way different. We did the best we could to make it the same though. Elder Medina, Reidhead, Rivarola, and I had an asado. It was super good. Beef and chicken!!!

We found a statue of someone that looks a lot like a mythical creature from Paraguay. I turned to Elder Rivarola (from Paraguay) and was like, "Hey man look, its Kuripi" he just about died laughing. Pretty similar I guess.

Tell Grandma that she is in my prayers. And also, keep President Zanni in your prayers. He is having surgery tomorrow and it is a pretty risky one. To the point of him telling us to help his wife and family return to their Home town if he doesnt make it.

I love you all!