Am I my brother's keeper?

"And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?" - Genesis 4:9

"And again I say unto you, is there one among you that doth make a mock of his brother, or that heapeth upon him persecutions? Wo unto such a one, for he is not prepared, and the time is at hand that he must repent or he cannot be saved!" - Alma 5:30-31

"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another." - John 13:35

"My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth." - 1 John 3:18

Last week I gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting about the divine gift of repentance! I used an analogy of irrigation water, sprinklers, and green grass. I quickly learned that I don't have those vocab words unlocked in Spanish yet lol. Lucky irrigation can be said "irrigación" so I was chilling. Basically, the analogy was that once the water is turned on for the neighborhood the water is ready to go and accessible watering the lawn. But if you have ever worked with irrigation you know that that is not really the case, it takes a few hours on Saturday afternoon with Pops to fix all the sprinklers, timing, etc. Sometimes the pipes have frozen over and exploded and you need to dig down to fix it. Once the whole system is running nicely, we can turn on the water and water the lawn to keep it nice and green. The water is always accessible to us, but we need to work with the irrigation in order to utilize that water and receive the blessings. 

The blessings of Christ's Atonement are always accessible to us, but we only receive them when we make it possible for them to flow to us or through us. The process of "cleaning, fixing, and adjusting the irrigation" is necessary, and the process of repentance is necessary to receive the blessings of the Atonement of Christ. I share this because afterward, a lady we are helping come back to church said she liked it a lot and asked us for a few scriptures about repentance. That made me feel really good to know that the Holy Ghost guided me to help at least one person!

We had a Zone Conference this week and talked about the importance of working through less active or inactive members of the church. One thing that I have found, which isn't a crazy revolutionary thing at all but anyway, is that "practice makes perfect", even in missionary life. So my comp and I made sure to emphasize the roleplay/practice part of the training. 

I will toss a PDF version of the training if you want to see what's good (slide 14 is my favorite).

We are teaching a little girl named Dawn (codename). Her dad is a member who has been pretty inactive but now he is coming back to the church. Dawn is so cute and super smart. Recently we taught her about why Jesus Christ is important and she totally understood it. I love seeing her learn and even more than that, I love to see her dad testify and teach her about the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you are still reading this super long email I invite you to reach out to a friend or family member who is inactive in the church and see how you can help them. I know that they can actually feel the spirit again and have desires to return! Buena semana chavales :)

Élder Ditto

On Go Mode

Holis

Elder Gomez, my new companion.  We are both serving as AP's

YOUNG CHAP RAPS.... 

This week was turbo  the days start to mix like we playing Wordle 

I'm glad I was furtle  my baby boi Hill working up in the office 

From meetings to casas  gave Junior the Book now he's holding it hostage 

God doesn't take losses  his knowledge and glory keeps the work popping 

That took way too long, but that's kind of how I felt this week! The new missionaries came in, so we got to help with that. Élder Hill is no longer in the office, so I get to see him often! And we have been grinding the obra in our area! 

It's been so fun to see Elder Miranda with my new transfer.

Junior got baptized!!  I was able to join by zoom!

Love, Elder Ditto

2025!!!!

Hola a toditos:) 

We are teaching a dude named Junior, he is from Guinea Ecuatorial (Africa) and he is super awesome. He knows a lot from the bible and requested a Book of Mormon online. He loves the Book of Mormon now, like a lot! He's also very enamored by the confirmation and receiving of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. We really wants to get baptized and confirmed as a member of Jesus Christ's church! For now, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not in Guinea Ecuatorial, no chapels and no missionaries from what we can tell. 

Junior is in Spain for vacation and is leaving in a few weeks back to Guinea. Also, he doesn't even live on the mainland of Guinea, he lives on a little island haha. So that makes it even more probable that there is no church there. So the plan is to help him get baptized and teach him really well, then see if he can go to Cameroon or Gabon sometimes. It's a crazy situation, but it'll work out. I hope missionaries get sent to Guinea Ecuatorial soon to help our my boi Junior and his family and friends.

On Friday night, I was sick, and I started shivering so much, and I felt suuper bad, when I got in my bed I prayed to stop shivering, and literally exactly when I finished the prayer my body stopped shivering and I started breathing normally. It reminded me of the bible story when Jesus calms the storm, it was so awesome.

On Saturday, we had like four lessons planned, and they were all canceled, but no pasa nada, we followed our backup plans and got to work. We ended up teaching four different people we didn't know at the same times the other lessons were planned for, it was sick. 

1. We taught Moises about the mission, he wants to serve in August!!!!!! 

2. We passed by a member's house, but he doesn't live there anymore, so we taught a dude named Eugenio (also from Guinea Ecuatorial). 

3. Ame to church with her son! 

4. B Karen and S. Carby, an old reference that we never were able to meet in person after trying like 8 times. 

It was a miraculous day, la verdad.

    

Pensamiento Espiritual:

Parents do so much for their kids. They pay for school, light, electricity, food, car, gas, clothes, etc. And the kids usually aren't conscious or fully grateful for this help until that kid becomes an adult and starts paying for those things themselves! Then, all of a sudden, the sacrifice and help of the parents becomes apparent that the now adult can really appreciate and thank their parents for everything they did. 

I think the same thing happens with the help and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ did so much for us and we simply don't think about/understand/comprehend it until we put in the spiritual work to do so. One of the very best parts of missionary work is teaching someone about who Jesus Christ is and why He needs to be important in our lives. I have been able to help a few people this week understand and be more grateful for the perfect life of Jesus.

We get transfer news on Saturday, a ver que pasa! I have 3 transfers left.

Love, Elder Ditto