Hey family! So the world seems kind of sad right now. I'm not really sure what it is, but things are definitely not going well for whole lot of people. This week (though it's looking up a little more right now so I'm fine) was probably the hardest of my mission. But that's nothing compared to much of the suffering that I'm seeing here in Pichidegua, back in my old sector at Hospital, and especially at home in my ward. So I've been thinking a lot this week, and I apologize if my thoughts seemed scattered, but I want to share a little bit about what's going on and what I'm thinking about.
First I got an email from my trainee and he told me that they haven't seen Felipe for weeks and he isn't answering his phone. Claudio also stopped progressing. That definitely hit hard, but I put my faith that the Lord will guide both of them to the truth, if not now, then one day.
Things have also taken a nose dive around here, we went to Javier's house this week and an argument erupted between Javier, his girlfriend, and his girlfriend's mom about drugs and crime and whatever kind of other evil thing that's in that house. Javier eventually got so angry he left the table and we had to leave the house, but we left a pamphlet open on the table to the section of repentance, and told the two people remaining that it was the only solution to the problems that we're seeing. Then we left. We weren't able to see Adrea this week either, nor the family that we just found. Andrea seemed to be giving excuses, so we thought we lost her too.
Satan has a very strong hold on Pichidegua. There are a lot of drugs and prostitutes and very little receptiveness to the gospel. Any possibility of progress satan tries to kill, but luckily, God is way more powerful than satan. Anybody who is meant to be a member of Christ's church joins, as we can see by our recent convert that is continuing firm.
So this is when I got really pensive. And I think I know why, because it appears that there are a lot of people who are going through very hard things right now at home and here in Chile.
In moments like these, I'm just grateful for the knowledge that I have of the great Plan of Salvation that our Father fashioned for us. It's so simple, and I've always had a basic knowledge of it, but I don't think it was until my mission where I really began to understand it. God saw fit to give the lesser intelligences, or His spirit children, the opportunity to be exalted as He is, and as a part of this plan He sent us to this earth. There was no beginning of our existence, and there is no end. It is like a ring, as Joseph Smith says, and if we assume there was beginning that would be proving that there is an end, as cutting a ring in half would do. Here, God gave us a set of commandments that would allow us to learn truth, or allow us to discover who we really are as spirit children of a Perfect Being. As we learn to keep the commandments, we learn who we really are and our inborn potential to become as God is. As we grow in truth, we become more like God. Sin is a rebellion against who we were, who we are, who God is, and especially who we will become. Sin is a rebellion against the grace of God, the grace that God had in the beginning when he created us and the grace that he had when we prepared a plan for us to advance. But our merciful Father prepared a means by which we would be able to overcome the effects of sin and death and be able to be restored to truth, or who we really are. This is not a one time occurrence, rather a lifetime (and more) process of progression that is enabled by the atonement of Jesus Christ. After this life, we will pass to the next, and according to our works and repentance in this life are sanctified and exalted by the atonement of Jesus Christ and presented to the Father in the glorious consummation.
But this is the point - as my dad quoted to me from a book he bought, sin wants to be the star of the show. Not only do we ''look at God's grace from the perspective of this sin'' but sin seems to constantly consume us. We see it everywhere and we lose hope. In the view of the big picture, this life sure looks pretty small, but while we are here it seems sometimes like it's the only thing that exists. We feel loss, regret, disappointment, and all of this is just magnified by our lack of ability to see things as they really are, or in their eternal view. Sometimes in life the veil seems like a wall of 10 foot thick concrete, and despite our prayers, we just feel abandoned.
This is life is hard, and it was meant to be hard, and it will always be hard. We experience loss, and sometimes that loss is a loss we will have to endure until our short time on earth is over and we will be reunited with all that is true in the life after. But this world was meant to have opposition, because in order to fulfill the plan of God for us to advance, we have to pass through fire. We have to have a choice, when hard things come, if we're going to continue to love God despite what's happening or if we're going to abandon Him to our sinful selfishness. We are here, according to Paul, to learn to love. Loving God and all men is the epitome of losing the natural man, because love means that one stops caring about oneself entirely for the benefit of the other. We have to have a choice to love God or to love ourselves, to love other people or to love sin, and this choice can't exist without trials of our faith. And trials of our love. Sometimes, in order for us to truly progress and discover truth, we have to feel abandoned. I suppose this is the reason that our Father had to abandon Christ in his last moments on the cross, when he cried out ''My God, why hast though forsaken me.''
A lot of people fall in the path, and a ton of people fall when they pass through the fire of affliction, but if we understand the true nature of God's plan we won't be discouraged, because we know that according to the merciful plan of God they will one day live in a kingdom of glory as a resurrected being forever.
The big picture of all this is what God told to Joseph Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 121, that these afflictions are only for a small moment, and after that small moment we will be reunited with all of God's children and we will all be resurrected and inherit a kingdom of glory as a higher intelligence and live in happiness forever. A moment of fire is a small price to pay for an eternity of happiness. And the best part is, that if we endure that moment of fire well, we will be exalted in the Celestial Kingdom and live in perfect love with our eternal family. God promises that what we seek we shall find, and exaltation isn't an exception. Exaltation is for those ''who keep the commandments of God or seeketh so to do.'' Because of the mercy of our Father and our Elder Brother, exaltation is attainable to all of us. And we never have to worry about that.
And that is the definition of hope. That we understand the eternal outlook of our existence and of this life, and we understand that God never truly abandons us. We understand that we will be with our loved ones forever, and whatever pain we have to pass through here has an end. Even when the veil seems to be made of steel, the love of God is never farther than a prayer.
I want to let you all know that I have a testimony of all of this, and that I know without a doubt that Jesus Christ lives and is our Savior, that he atoned for us in Gethsemane, and that he died for us on the cross, and He rose from the dead the third day. I love this Gospel, and I know that it's true. I know that Christ is at the head of this church, and that because of Him, there will never be a cause for us to lose hope.
I love you all! And I hope that something I said might have an impact on one of you. I pray for you all!
Love
Elder Fox
