April 6, 2015
Dear Family,
First off, thank you so much for helping me to get things
going for college and apartment stuff. I’m excited to be rooming with Sean. It
will be great to go back to the good old days J!
It will definitely give us a chance to get to know each other again.
So this week was really good, even though it was a lot
different than usual. This week was la
Semana Santa, which as you all remember is a Catholic church holiday... So they give the entire week off from school
and work to literally the whole country!
We were really a little bit nervous because with that we could have two
possible outcomes... The first is that
every one is home and we teach out of our minds, and the second is that no one
is home and we aren't able to teach hardly anyone.... This year our luck fell to option number two,
so we we not able to teach very many people this week. We were knocking on lots
of doors, and no one was even home. The problem
was that the majority of the people who live here aren't from here, they are
from a place called El Cibao, a little town that is close to here, but is in
the Santiago mission... so everyone went home because it is so close to
here! We were able to have some other
opportunities this week though that made it a great week!
On Friday we ran out of drinking water, called, and they
weren't working because of the holiday.
We decided to just move on with life because we had an activity at the
church, because it was Viernes Santo, the day when Christ was crucified. The activity started with a good little
journey through the last week of Christ's life, and it was amazing. I hope the people were able to feel the
spirit. Then we started to play betiyah,
the street baseball that they play with the tops to the water jugs. It was fun, and we also ate lunch and had
habichuelas con dulce.... I am going to
have to make it for you guys when I get home, because it is too hard to explain
what it is, so you will just have to see!
We watched the new Exodus movie, which was interesting, and then we were
able to teach a little about that because lots of people had questions about
whether the story really went with the movie.
On Saturday we were able to go to all 3 sessions of the
conference, and we went to the stake center for the first two... It was like being back home!! Air conditioning, soft chairs, watching the
conference on a nice projector... It was
nice to be able to watch it like that!!
It was a much needed conference, even though it was a little bit sad
because it was my last in the mission.
After the first two sessions we went back to our chapel to support a
baptism that the other guys in the house were having, and it was really
good. About ten seconds before it
started, I was asked to speak, so I spoke on the restoration of the priesthood
and how necessary the priesthood is for the ordinance of baptism. It was good, and then we watched the
priesthood session!! We also didn't get the water call because we were out of the house all day, and were not there to
receive it!!
On Sunday we woke up and had big plans for the day... We were going to study, teach some lessons,
cook, and eat before the conference...
So we woke up, studied, and I went on an intercambio with Avina to
teach. I left, and my comp started to
cook. I came home and he told us that the
gas to cook ran out. It was Sunday and
we didn't want to full on buy gas, so we just heated up the toaster oven thing
that usually is for waffles and cooked fried eggs and ate salad. We went to the sessions and it was amazing,
and I loved it! We finished that, and
then we went home. We had a bag of
charcoal because a kid in our house has like a Haitian oven, which is just a
can that has a little grill thing on it.
We decided to use that, and ended up making a really good locrio, which is
rice and meat and vegetables all cooked together!! It was really good, and we ate more
salad!
Today we went to the stake center and had a zone activity
where we ate pizza, played basketball, and talked. It was fun and everyone enjoyed themselves!
They also announced a new temple... in Haiti!! That was awesome to hear!
My favorite talk from conference was Elder Bednar from the
Saturday afternoon session! It was about
fear, and how we can not let fear run our lives. It was interesting to think about. 87% of people in the WORLD let the fear of
failing stop them from even trying. 87%
of people won't even start for the fear of not finishing. I just started to think about that.... How would the world be if we were never
afraid to do what is right? It would be
really different. We would share the
gospel more, we would use Christ's atonement more, and we would do everything
possible to keep the commandments. He
also gave us three tips to overcome the fears that we have. First we need to first come unto Christ. Don't doubt, don't fear. We need to assure ourselves that we go unto
Christ, so that we can live in His care.
Second, we need to edify ourselves in Him. We need to live and complete the covenants
that we made, and live worthy to be prepared to move forward and make more
covenants with God. Lastly, we need to
follow Him. We need to follow Him with a
firmness and a true desire to walk where He walked, not for obligation but out
of love! If we do these things, we will
have eternal life!!
I hope you all loved the conference. I would love to hear about what your favorite
talks were, why you liked them, and specific plans about how you are going to
put them to practice in your life!!
Love,
Elder Garrett McEwan
P.S.: Tell Rob and
Cammy and the boys thanks for the letter.
I just got it last week!!
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