6/9/14 Email

From: Camille Weller [mailto:camille.weller@myldsmail.net]
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2014 10:49 AM
To: Melissa Wheatley;
Subject: Luz trae Luz (:

This week felt like the shortest week of my life! Maybe because we went to arequipa or because we were jammed pack with activities but it sure flew by! (: Well monday we had a FHE again and it turned out soo good. We had lots of members and investigators show up and me and hna stone gave a lesson about putting on the armor of God which the kids all loved and then we played some fun games. Its cool because most of them are the only members in their families or only a few are so having family home evening with all the non members is kind of hard, its nice for them to have the oportunity to do it with our little branch family. 

Tuesday we were off to Arequipa, we got some things done we needed to, had a yummy  lunch and then met up with a big group of high school kids that were here for a service trip from misouri and got to help them with some translating here and there, it was cool to see how far our spanish has come and how we really can speak another language... cool moment. haha then that night we got to eat at TGI fridays with our district and zone leaders... man that was the best meal ive had in a while. Good ol american food.. never gets old. Then we had a sleep over with Hna Bazan and Hna Flora and got to catch up and just talk for a while, it was cool to see my "daughter" be a "mom" haha kids... they grow up to fast (:

Wednesday we had our zone conference and it was exactly what i needed to hear. We talked a lot about obedience and the blessings that come from it and also about just having a possitive attitude. President Zobrist even came at the end and talked to us about Either 12:4.. one of the questions he asked was "What are the anchors in your life? " loved that. Some other things i wanted to share from my notes are.....

Focus on what you CAN change and not on things that are out of your control. 

Obedience brings blessings... everytime.. disobedience brings negative consequenses.. everytime. 

Your attitude is contagious.. possitive or negative. 

What comes out of your mission is what you put into it. (can be the same with life.. what comes out of your life.. is what you put into it. )

If your always doing good, there wont be time to be disobedient or to sin. 

Darkness brings darkness... Light brings light. 

The Lord is perfect.. his ways are perfect.. therefore his results are perfect. 

Anyways it was a good conference, then again they all are(: plus when we were down in arequipa i got the package mom sent me!!!! full of the best treats ever!! there goes the diet... haha and with national triube bands cd for missionaries.... which is SOOO GOOD. i think we´ve listened to it everyday since. 

After the bus ride home wednesday night we finally got back to work on thursday. We had weekly planning and then planned out all of the activities we had planned for the week with the elders. I have so much respect for all the leaders back home.. planning and making all those activites happen isnt as easy as it looks! We had mutual that night but had one kid show up so we just ended up watching mormon messages instead of the service race we had planned... better luck next week eh? 

Friday we had our big branch activity, BBQ night (: that one was actually a success! we had about 40 people there and there was just all sorts of fun. Hamburgers, hotdogs, homemade french fries made by yours truly, the youth were all playing ping pong, the moms and adults just chatting away, and then all the kids were playing hide and seek. It was awesome! 

Saturday we got a suprise call from some of the RS presidency and they told us they were coming up with big bags of clothes to hand out to the poor kids here. IT turned out to be such a cool experience. They announced it on the radio and we went around to some of the poorer areas and knocked doors to let people know, they litterally dropped whatever they were doing to go get their kids free clothes.. it was so fun to see them get new sweaters and clothes and see the smiles on their faces. We even got some new investigators and some came that night to the movie night we had. 

Sunday was the best day of the week!! We had 35 people at church... a huge jump from the 20 or 25 we usually have! 6 of which were our investigators.. those are the best sundays ever. Me and hna stone took all the kids to primary... and man 9 kids in a small room was really teaching us patience (: props to all the newlyweds that get stuck in nursery (: We talked to Brenda who had told us her dad said she could get baptized this saturday so we had everything planned but she said he changed his mind and is back to the end of june. we could definately use some prayers his way... Coincidentally his name is Angel.. haha Victor is super excited for his baptism, we didnt end up having it on saturday, he still had a few questions but now he is ready so were excited for that this week. 

At church on sunday i gave a talk on obedience and used the talk from Elder Robert D. Hales called "if ye love me, keep my commandments." from last general conference. I think i learned more than what i actually taught or spoke about. One thing that stood out for me is that every week when we take the sacrament, we arent only recieving forgiveness for all the things we did that week if we truly repented but we are also promising that we are going to be obedient and keep His commandments. in the talk it says...

When we are baptized, we “take upon [us] the name of Christ” and enter “into the covenant with God that [we will] be obedient unto the end of [our] lives.”⁷ Each Sunday we renew that baptismal covenant by partaking of the sacrament and witnessing that we are willing to keep the commandments. We seek forgiveness for any thoughts, feelings, or actions that are not in harmony with our Heavenly Father’s will. As we repent by turning away from disobedience and by beginning to obey again, we show our love for Him.

 Another thing i loved was..

As we live the gospel, we progress in our understanding of obedience. At times we may be tempted to practice what I call “natural man’s obedience,” in which we disobediently reject God’s law in favor of our wisdom or our desires or even popularity. Because this is widely practiced by so many, this perversion of obedience diminishes God’s standards in our culture and in our laws.

At times members may participate in “selective obedience,” claiming to love God and honor God while picking and choosing which of His commandments and teachings—and the teachings and counsel of His prophets—they will fully follow.

Some obey selectively because they cannot perceive all the reasons for a commandment, just as children do not always understand the reasons for their parents’ counsel and rules. But we always know the reason we follow the prophets, for this is the Church of Jesus Christ, and it is the Savior who directs His prophets in all dispensations.

my favorite part is that we ALWAYS know the reason that we should follow the prophets and their teachings... because this IS the Church Of Jesus Chirst and He is the one that leads and directs the prophets and the things that they instruct us to do.. we know the reason why we should be obedient..
Obedience is something every missionary is familiar with.. i dont think any of us ever had soo many rules in our life before becoming a missionary. But because of that we have more oportunities to prove our obedience and to recieve more blessings. I beleive that serving a mission is hard... that its the hardest thing ive ever done, but that because of it i have learned so much and learned that in this time i need more rules... because more rules means more blessings and man do i need those blessings. Obedience is the first law of the Celestial Kingdom.. and as hard as it is we have to learn to understand the importance of it and truly understand the phrase.. "If ye love me, keep my commandments." If we truly love God, we will do our best each day to keep the commandments and be obedient to what the prophets have taught us. We wont be Selective obeyers.. but we will put the love we have for our Maker.. our Father in Heaven before all things, small or big. I know that obedience isnt always easy and that the natural man is always there with reasons of why being disobedient would be better but i know that that is not true.. no matter how much we try to find happiness in disobedience it wont come.... disobeying Gods divine laws will never bring true happiness. i know this from personal experiece. One more part from this awesome talk..

 In choosing whether we will obey, it is always helpful to remember the consequences of our choices. Did Lucifer and his followers understand the consequences of choosing to reject Heavenly Father’s plan? If so, why did they make such a terrible choice? We might ask ourselves a similar question: why do any of us choose to be disobedient when we know the eternal consequences of sin? The scriptures provide an answer: the reason Cain and some of the children of Adam and Eve chose to disobey is because “they loved Satan more than God.

That might sound a little harsh but its the words of the scriptures therefore the words of God... If we love god we will obey.. if we choose to disobey we love satan more than God.

Well i hope that everyone had an amazing week like we did and that this week will be even better! Love you all! Always remember how much you love God and live your life according! (:

Love,

Hermana Weller (: