Semana Santa And Keep Your Eyes On The Savior

Semana Santa/Holy Week

More Of Semana Santa

Fifty tortillas, another chicken foot and a week full of apostasy. The best news: WE GOT LIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 13 days without light! Tuesday is when it came back on. I can’t even describe how grateful I am to have light and to have a fridge. I never realized how great it is to have light! So grateful!! Anyway Semana Santa (Holy Week) is crazy! It is nuts and not in a good way. It is sad, they all focus on the death of Christ; they hardly ever talk about the resurrection. It really should be called beer feast. So many people just drink, drink and drink some more, they are drunk all week. I wish that they would listen to our message and learn of the true meaning of Easter. I wish you guys could have seen this week. I hope Easter Sunday was great for you guys. 

Hiking To The Waters Of Baptism

Sacred Waters

This week we found a family that the missionaries used to teach. The relief society president was talking to the mom and told her to let us teach the family. She told her this is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The mom told the relief society president that she wanted her son to serve a mission. My jaw dropped when the relief society president told me. The next day I went to visit the family and to invite them to a branch activity. The mom told me she wants her son to serve a mission. I looked at him and asked him do you really want to be a missionary and he said yes. I told him to come to the activity and we can talk more. This conversation took place about 10 minutes before the activity, he didn’t come and he didn’t go to church but we are visiting them tonight.

Bad News Treat

We didn’t have a baptism this week. We keep praying Anny will receive her answer and will follow Christ and be baptized. We pray that she will recognize and be ready to receive the gentle tug of the spirit. We will continue to teach, testify, love and pray for her.

The School In School In San Antonio Huista

I gave a talk on prayer in church on Sunday. I shared that prayer is two-way communication and that we should make our prayers more meaningful. We should pray with a heart of gratitude and express our thanks. We should use language that shows respect and reverence. And as we close our prayers, we should take time to pause and listen and not just jump up as if it is a check mark for the day. Heavenly Father will counsel, guide, or comfort us while we are on our knees so be patient and humble. We also watched the first session of General Conference for the last 2 hours of church. I could listen to conference over and over. We should all take time to review the messages that were shared, they will bring a renewed determination to live the gospel and serve the Lord.

Soccer Fields In San Antonio Huista

Semana Santa Sand Art

So as this past week was Easter and I read a talk by Elder Holland, ‘BROKEN THINGS TO MEND.’ https://www.lds.org/search?lang=eng&query=broken+things+to+mend+jeffrey+r+holland He talks about coming unto Christ. The talk is amazing and truly touches on the Easter season. Elder Holland shares, “There can and will be plenty of difficulties in life. Nevertheless, the soul that comes unto Christ, who knows His voice and strives to do as He did, finds a strength, as the hymn says, ‘beyond [his] own.’ The Savior reminds us that He has ‘graven [us] upon the palms of [His] hands.’ Considering the incomprehensible cost of the Crucifixion and Atonement, I promise you He is not going to turn His back on us now. When He says to the poor in spirit, ‘Come unto me,’ He means He knows the way out and He knows the way up. He knows it because He has walked it. He knows the way because He is the way.” I know Elder Holland’s words to be true. I know Christ will never forget us. I have had the experience on my mission to see the joy of one person coming unto Christ as she put her trust in Him. The Savior knows our heartaches, our struggles, and our difficult path because He has walked the same path.  When you think no one knows or understands how you feel you are wrong, the Son of God knows. Elder Holland shared this, “The Savior’s Atonement lifts from us not only the burden of our sins but also the burden of our disappointments and sorrows, our heartaches and our despair.” The key to the peace and rest we seek is to Come Unto Christ. Elder Holland gives a perfect example of Coming Unto Christ. He said, “I think also of that night when Christ rushed to the aid of His frightened disciples, walking as He did on the water to get to them, calling out, ‘It is I; be not afraid.’ Peter exclaimed, ‘Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.’ Christ’s answer to him was as it always is every time: ‘Come,’ He said. Instantly, as was his nature, Peter sprang over the vessel’s side and into the troubled waters. While his eyes were fixed upon the Lord, the wind could toss his hair and the spray could drench his robes, but all was well—he was coming to Christ. It was only when his faith wavered and fear took control, only when he removed his glance from the Master to look at the furious waves and the ominous black gulf beneath, only then did he begin to sink into the sea. In newer terror he cried out, “Lord, save me.” I have seen that same scenario many times as a missionary and many times before my mission. It is when we take our eyes off Christ is when we fall. It is then we are forced out to cry out “Save Me.” He has sent us as missionaries to reach out our hands of hope teaching to Come Unto Christ. I have seen what happens when one doesn’t taker her eyes off Christ. She was in a storm of fierce trials and she was also my first baptism. She was receiving false doctrines and was faced great temptation. The false words, fear, temptations and voices saying you can’t get baptized could have tossed her into the furious waves but it didn’t, because she never took her eyes off the Savior. There will come a time when the storms of life will try and beat you down and that storm may be hitting right now. I promise if you keep your eyes on Christ you will walk on water (the straight and narrow path that leads to Christ) and YOU WILL NOT FALL! The Savior has promised if you will follow me, I will lead you out of darkness. I will give you answers to your prayers. I will give you rest to your souls. It is my prayer that we will never look away from Christ.

What I love about Mom is she ran the pink run with a broken wrist in a pink cast. What I love about Dad is that he told me what he learned in a priesthood leadership meeting.

Ducks Forever
With Love,
Elder Mcilmoil
April 21, 2014

Tracking In The Jungle

Tortilla count for the week: 50 and one more chicken foot.

Scripture of the week: Luke 24:6 I know this church is true. I am more certain that the church has the priesthood keys than I have ever before. I know that Jesus Of Nazareth is the living Christ. I know that He was slain and crucified and on the third day and He rose from the dead. I know that since He lives and rose from the dead, you and I and everyone will live again in a resurrected body. I know that Jesus Christ is the living Son of a living God. I know he paid the price for our sins, sickness, pains, trials and more. I know that through the Atonement we can have a fresh start, a new page, and our regrets become relief. I know the power of the Atonement I have seen it in my own life. I know that Christ is calling every single one of us to Come Unto Him with arms wide open. All of us can be perfected through Christ. I give you my solemn witness that Christ lives and is a resurrected being. Come unto Christ every day. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Elder McIlmoil 

“Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not an effort of once a week or once a day. It is an effort of once and for all.” President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

In Nazareth, the narrow road,

That tires the feet and steals the breath,
Passes the place where once abode
The Carpenter of Nazareth.

 And up and down the dusty way

The village folk would often wend;
And on the bench, beside Him, lay
Their broken things for Him to mend.

The maiden with the doll she broke,

The woman with the broken chair,
The man with broken plough, or yoke,
Said, “Can you mend it, Carpenter?”

And each received the thing he sought,

In yoke, or plough, or chair, or doll;
The broken thing which each had brought
Returned again a perfect whole.

So, up the hill the long years through,

With heavy step and wistful eye,
The burdened souls their way pursue,
Uttering each the plaintive cry:

“O Carpenter of Nazareth,

This heart, that’s broken past repair,
This life, that’s shattered nigh to death,
Oh, can You mend them, Carpenter?”

And by His kind and ready hand,

His own sweet life is woven through
Our broken lives, until they stand
A New Creation—“all things new.”

“The shattered [substance] of [the] heart,

Desire, ambition, hope, and faith,
Mould Thou into the perfect part,
O, Carpenter of Nazareth!”