Tres Mil Papas (Three Thousand Potatoes): Week 27 - "yay :)" Mar 7

Last Monday (P-Day Jonah was able to take a trip into the mountains 13,000+ elevation and visited some caves. It is amazing that it is so green even at that high elevation. He said it was quite cool and rainy. He is also so excited to have Elder Herde (one of his MTC companions in his zone. He is in several of the pictures below. One update - Hermana Melissa who was baptized a few weeks ago when she was 9 months pregnant had a healthy big baby!

Hellooo everyone!! This week has been a load of spiritual goodness wrapped in blood, sweat, tears!! Woooohhhh!!! No but really, this past week, I had one of the best moments of my entire life. It was the greatest faith building experience that I've had in my whole mission....so I'm pretty sure that seals the deal for my life too jaja. Well....what happened is we had a zone training this past Tuesday. And it was fantastic. We learned a whole bunch about asking inspired questions and stuff like that, but at the end of the training, we had an Atonement lesson. And they basically taught the whole thing through an activity, and I was asked as a volunteer to help out with it.

Basically what happened was that every person in our zone was going to receive a piece of candy. But in order to receive it, I had to do 10 push-ups. With 32 people in the zone, it seemed impossible. It seemed outlandish, and I thought the Zone leaders were going to stop before I could finish. I started doing the push-ups in the beginning fairly easily, but by 15 people, I was starting to struggle. Some of the people started saying that they didn't want the candy, because they didn't want to be the cause of the pain. But even if they rejected the candy, I still had to do the 10 push-ups. By 20 people, I was crying. Not completely because it hurt (because it did), but more because I started thinking more in Christ, but on a level that I had never quite experienced before. I started collapsing on every person, and I thought of how Christ personally, collapsed because of pain, for the things that I have done wrong. That the pains that he suffered were so personal. I had never felt this before...the Atonining sacrifice so personally in my life. The Elders started doing the push-ups with me towards the end, and I thought of something that I had never thought of before.. When the Elders were doing the push-ups with me, it still hurt. It still hurt a lot. But, the fact that they were laboring with me, comforted me. That they had appreciated the candy that they had received, and wanted to come down with me, and work. I feel like this is comparison exactly with missionary work. The pain that Christ suffers will always be more, but we should still put in our effort and work, to show that we are thankful. The pain is still there, regardless if we work or not. But it is our opportunity to bare the burden with Christ. This is what I want to do for the rest of my mission, and for the rest of my life. I want to bare the burden with Christ, to really show Him that I love Him and what He did for me..... Anyway, I finished. 32 people minus me and the 2 zone leaders in charge.. By the end of the activity, it had hit everyone pretty hard, what we were doing. A lot of people were crying...then we all shared testimony about the Atonement. It was seriously the greatest thing ever. The only thing that kinda stunk is that my arms and chest hurt pretty bad for the next 3 days jaja.

Welp.. besides that, not a lot else happend. Oh btw, the barber cut me shaving my sideburns, so that's why it was BLOOD, sweat, and tears jaja. We have a few baptisms that are coming up soon, so I'll let you guys know with all that good stuff in the next few weeks. Love you all!!! Use the Atonement!!!! It wasn't free!!!! Jesus loves you more than me!!!!! But I still love you guys a lot!!!! Chauskis :)