SHOW Him

Familia Mia~ Como estan??  Thanks Alex for the update on the funeral.  I am glad it went well, I was thinking about all of you!  Love you guys so much.

This week was great.  Just great.  Yakin Clark got baptized :)  His family is amazing, they were a less-active family that has started coming back to church and their youngest Yakin hadn't been baptized.  He is one "Sharp" little guy.  Hna Gomez and Hna Jardine came down from their area...and we had a very special Ukaelele randition of I am a Child of God with 4 Hermanas!  It was awesome. Attached are some pictures aren't they cute!

So updates...we are fabulous.  Working right along.  Rosa or Rosie I think I told you about her last week.  She is incredible.  She is struggling with her husband and really her family in general.  If anything with her I am learning how the Lord uses others to be an answer to our prayers.  Each and every one of us can be an instrument in the hands of the Lord if we do our part.  One of the most incredible families here i've gotten to know well has been through some rough stuff...the mother was just called as the relief society president and we brought her with us to a lesson.  She just basically told her story and it was incredible how she related to Rosie.  How her example of how the Gospel of Jesus Christ supported her in her trials and brought her family together was such an example to Rosie.  As we were talking Rosie mentioned how we are 21 year olds...not married without kids...and sometimes it is hard to relate to the experiences others are going through because we haven't experienced those things yet.  So I always go back to the fact that we are representatives of Jesus Christ.  We bring a message of His love.  Because He is the one who can heal you.  He is the only one who truly understands you...it is a testimony to me that God calls the weak to accomplish his work...because we learn more when we are humble...and more influence can be had.  Rosie explains how her Sister always told her to read the Book of Mormon but she never did...she just assumed it was something that helped her Sister but she didn't need it...until she became desperate she opened it up and suprisingly found the peace she was searching for. The clarity but more than anything the peace.

Anais is a young girl about our age we've been working with..trying to get her to come out to teach with us because honestly if anything helps people discover their testimony better, it is being in a situation where you can share it...people seem surprised to find out what they really believe.  She always says no...is struggling with depression and doesn't like leaving her house...gets nervous.  We took her over to teach her Grandma with us.  As we were leaving and she had denied our invitation once again she came running out...WAIT.  I'll come!  Wow!!! MILAGRO.  So she came with us and we ended up teaching this guy who had tons of questions...she said I am only going to say the prayer.  That is all.  But during the lesson she started to share her testimony of how she came to know these things we were teaching were true.  She went to Heavenly Father and paid attention to how she felt.  It was so cool to see someone so quite...with so much fear...as I have sometimes appeared in my life, find confidence through the Spirit of the Lord and bear a sincere testimony..possibly come to recognize something she didn't realize she believed.

I've thought a lot about the Savior this week~continuing the battle to overcome my many weaknesses and internal battles and I thought about the scripture in Moroni 10:32 that says,

"Yea come unto Christ and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye deny yourselves of all ungodliness and love God with all your might, mind and strength then is his grace sufficient for you that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ and by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ ye can in nowise deny the power of God."

I thought about what it means to me to love God with all my might mind and strength and I realized..I have to SHOW Him by doing my best everyday to share His love with those around me.  Also to recognize he really does walk by my side.  By recognizing that everything I do should show Him I love him...and more than anything trusting Him to cover the many mistakes I make along the way.  Knowing he understands the desires of our hearts...and He just gets us.  And I am coming to realize that the Savior is probably a lot more merciful than I give him credit.  He knows when we are doing our best.  And when we are not.

I know it has been a hard week for you guys.  Know you are in my thoughts and prayers.  And that the Savior is right there with you if you let Him be.  Thanks for being such an incredible family.  I am more and more grateful every day for y'all.

Se que el vive y que el nos ama.  Se que familias son eternas y que voy a ver mi abuelita holanda un dia.  Se que ella me esta ayudando.  La quiero mucho a ella y abuelito tambien.  Ojala que sepan el amor de Dios es real y el nos ha dado todo que necesitamos para experimentar la verdadera felicidad en esta vida que viene de el.  Les quiero mucho.

Con mucho amor~
Hermana Holland