Week 39: Hermana Maria

Hello my wonderful friends and family who I love so much, the past couple weeks have been super great, we have found three families that are progressing and one even came to a baptism that we had this Saturday!!

A couple things that have been funny that have happened the past couple of weeks-

-We helped a really cute old man finishing build a side of wall in his house- made of mud..

-We found a cute old woman hauling wood, helped her out, she gave us like 8 mangos from her mango tree, and now her daughters our listening to the lessons

-A not so cute parakeet pooped on my arm

-It poured down raining out of no where, and then my companion got attacked by ants (here the ants bite!!)

In our ward there is an hermana named Maria who is a recent convert of gold, she always asks to accompany us for visits and when sharing her testimony often mentions that from the beginning of when she began to learn about the gospel, she began to feel complete, like part of her that she didn`t realize was missing, was filling up inside of her. This week I thought a lot about what that word even means, what does it mean to feel ¨complete¨ and what are obstacles from feeling that way. When we feel complete, it`s a a quiet assurance inside that gives us a sense that not only we are pleased with who we are, but that God is pleased as well. Despite our many perfections, we feel assured that God is pleased with our progress. This is important, because without feeling complete, you can do a lot of good for the world, can do a lot of good for your family, and a lot of good for your friends, but until you find what makes you complete you are just filling your life with activities that give you brief moments of peace that soon leave you, like trying to fill a bucket of water with holes in its base.

From my experience three major things have been obstacles from feeling this way: The first is shame. When we see other people progressing spiritually or temporally, or maybe we see that someone has done 5 service projects in one week and I have only done 4 service projects that week (exaggerating) we begin to compàre ourselves to other people, most often we are comparing our weaknesses to other people`s strengths, and we feel that what we have done is little compared to the rest. The second is guilt- it`s similar, because in both guilt and shame we realize that we are falling short, but with guilt sometimes it is a little harder to recognize the source. Our Heavenly Father has made a perfect plan, in which we chose to come to this Earth, live His commandments, and walk by faith rather by sight. When we do not follow His plan, we sin, which furthers us from God. Guilt is the little bird on our shoulder that tells us we are doing something wrong, we need to change something.

The last obstacle is false hope- This is my favorite because it`s possibly Satan`s most deceptive tool that he uses that we must all be aware of. It`s the expectation that you can find this feeling of completeness, or in other words peace and joy, in what the world has to offer rather than what God has to offer- in activites, in our friends, in hobbies- all could be good things- but do not offer true peace and joy. The question is, where are putting our faith? In the hope that the things of the world will make us happy? Or are we putting our faith in Christ? The only sure thing that there is in this world?

I invite you all to self-evaluate where you are putting your faith. God doesn`t expect us to be perfect, but he does expect that we strive for perfection. It`s time that we fill up the holes in the bucket so that we can be filled with this spirit of peace and joy.

Love you!

Hermana Bernal