Well, another week has come and gone here in the mission. This week was pretty good, except that nobody was in their house on Valentine's Day. Other than that though, things went pretty well. I've just about gotten used to this area, and I'm pretty sure that means we'll be having special changes this week. But in all honesty, it's a pretty good ward, and a pretty good group of missionaries here. I must admit that I'm having some problems thinking of what to tell you. We spent a lot of time this week knocking on doors without too much success. I guess we all have times like that though. I try to remember that Jesus went through all this before, and it does help me a bit. One story in particular comes to mind. Fairly early on in his ministry, Christ left Jerusalem and passed through Samaria. While there he taught a woman by Jacob's well, and later on managed to teach pretty much the entire town where he was. However, on another occasion he passed through this same area, but this time in the direction of Jerusalem. This time nobody wanted to hear him, just because he was entering into Jerusalem, instead of leaving it. It's interesting to see the difference between these two visits. The gospel was the same, Jesus was still the son of God, but for stupid pride the people lost their chance to hear him teach. I feel that all people, even members of the church, have moments like this, where we let stupid little worries get in the way of spiritual growth. I guess it's like an article I read in the January Liahona. It talks about a man who was on an archiological trip in Guatemala. He was traveling to the site in a boat at night, and he was trying to keep his sense of direction by finding the north star. At one point, he found it and felt like he was doing pretty good, until he realized that his "star" was in fact a firefly. It then talked about how even though the stars shine a lot brighter than fireflies, because the firefly was closer than the stars, it seemed as bright, if not brighter than the stars. It then explained that our lives are often like this. Sometimes when we have problems, we lose sight of our eternal perspective because the problems are some much more prominent in our lives at the given moment. But, like the firefly, the problem really is nothing too big in comparison with the reward that waits for us, we just have troubles seeing it sometimes. So, all in all, I'm trying to focus more on the stars, and less on the fireflies here. And really, things are going good, we just had a week that wasn't so good.
Well, other than that, things are about the same here. Everybody still speaks Spanish. At times that fact hits me, that everybody here speaks Spanish, and that I can understand them, and speak to them in Spanish as well. I'm still not sure how that happened. Oh well, it's a crazy world sometimes.
I'm glad to hear that everything is going well for you at home. I do miss Lori's wit at times. She has a very unique way of seeing the world, but in a good way. Sorry this is a kind of short one, the time passed me by too fast today. Take care, and I'll write you next week.
Love,
Elder Samuel Long
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