im telling you right now that this week was literally psycho!!! what ended up happening here in the office is, we were having a little lunch with some of the zone leaders when our mission president got a phone call from salt lake. he took the call, left the room, and looked at us with some worrisome eyes. after the lunch with the zone leaders, he pulled the office peeps aside and was like.... "hey so um that was salt lake that called, and they told me that there is a lot of tension happening in mexico and they are worried about the hermanas that are serving over there. they decided to pull some out, and now three of them are coming to our mission in two days. you guys need to go find a house to buy and have all their furniture and things ready for when they get their new companions. good luck!" oh i was so shook. SALT LAKE JUST WANTED TO HUCK THREE HERMANAS FROM GUADALAJARA TO OUR MISSION...in 48 HOURS?! literally, we had a planning meeting and we hardly slept for the next like 2 days. we found a house to rent out, we cleaned it, we lifted like stoves and a fridge up like 5 flights of stairs, closets and all that stuff. then the next day we were running from home depot to the mall buying stuff like beds and kitchen stuff, i was doing applications for these hermanas visas and organizing interviews for them. it was literally THE MOST STRESSFUL thing. i love serving in this position, dont get me wrong. the i have to remind myself, that i work with THE WORLD, and the world is literally so unpredictable. they got here safe though! and they are working happily in san beranrdo and in san miguel districs! when we finally had a second, i had the opportunity to teach in a family home evening with alejandra and her husband! i wanted to touch on a little bit about challenges and how god uses them to our favor, and i didnt want to be boring, so i went to dc 122 and used verses 5-9. basically whats happening in these verses, is Joseph Smith is in jail and he is like "god why the heck are you putting me through this difficult time? i should be restoring the gospel and you put me in jail for what??????????" verses 5-9 explains what god said to him in a revelation, and it was amazing! the one that makes me tear up a little bit is the part where he mentions that "Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever." seriously, i thought it was so awesome! so what i did, is i made the example of an artist and god. i told them that god is the most perfect artist in the history of man kind, and we are his unmade creations. when we are born, we are like blobs of clay. we dont have experiences under our belt, we dont really know a lot about what it means to be happy and sad, so we need help trying to figure out those crucial differences. what god does, being an artist, is he takes us and puts us in his hands and molds us. he rolls us out, flattens us, rolls us up into balls, he puts you in coils, and sometimes he takes parts of clay off because he has a bigger picture in mind for you. it may hurt a little but, but at the end, you have a sort of form. you are still malleable. what an artist has to do is he has to put his piece in the kiln for the first firing, (which basically means the piece has to go through intense amounts of heats and get all the water taken out of it the process is very very very hot, and it normally takes about two days of straight heat in order to get rid of all the water.) now if this were us, its like trials. sometimes they are super long, sometimes they are going to hurt a whole bunch, and sometimes you are going to wonder when the heck you are going to get out of that stinkin furnace! but, like trials, the firing has to come to an end at some point, and you get to leave that furnace stronger. what happens is the piece comes out completely dry, and is able to take impacts way better. if it falls, it may get chipped a little bit, but not a lot of damage will be done. the only thing is, is that its just a one color piece, and who the heck wants a tea pot thats like a gross shade of beige. now the artist has to cover his piece in liquid glass and decorate it to make it unique and different from all the other pieces. god gives us so many spiritual experiences in this life that let our testimonies grow so much stronger, and lets us know the amount of time and love he is putting into us. we need those spiritual experiences because in the long run, they make us stronger for when we have to go through the second firing process. to get that liquid glass to solidify and show its true color, the piece now has to go in the kiln for even hotter temperatures and even longer periods of time. sometimes if you have a specific glaze, you get thrown into a flippin bonfire and are cooking for like a week straight. it takes forever! yes, sometimes the trials can get SUPER painful, the fire will come eventually. you are going to wonder how the heck you are going to be able to get through that second kiln stage. you are going to think to yourself,"if god has blessed em with all these great things, why the heck must i go through (insert trial here)". i want to tell you that in reality, once you leave that last kiln stage, you are going to be a piece more beautiful than you can ever imagine. once your glass has hardened, once you have cooled off and caught your balance again, you are going to be worth millions, even stronger than you can ever think of. trials, yes they suck....A LOT. but they are for a purpose, they are for your benefit for when there is an art gallery, people can see the things you had to go through in order to become that beautiful." i dont know. i really liked talking about this with alejandra! the spirit was super strong and we all left that noche de hogar spiritually uplifted! i hope you guy can look at trials in a little better way through this example i gave! i gotta scram though....love all of you guys so much! ekw we went go karting for pday..in a parking garage, with regular parked cars! beautiful chile my lunch right before the salt lake city call tryin' to take edgy pics thanks for the pumpkin spice cookie mix mom
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Elder Karson Wattles
Chile Santiago South Mission apartado postal No. 544 San Bernardo, Chile Archives
May 2019
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