Miracles

Happy Father's Day!

Wow, a new grill? Was there also a tie and at least one power-tool or golf club?  I'm kind of glad my family is so stereotypical American.  I made some very american food (biscuits and gravy) for breakfast.  There is another companionship temporarily living with us and one of the Elders is from Honduras, so he's never had biscuits and gravy before.  He was quite impressed.  So I'll teach him how to make that and he'll teach me how to make baliadas and all will be well in zion. My new companion is Elder Cathro from Evansville, Indiana.  He's super happy and a great leader.  I'm senior companion for the first time and it's a little challenging since I can't rely on someone who's been in the area for a third of their mission and knows exactly where everything is.  So we simply are guided by the spirit, not knowing beforehand the things that we should do.  For example, we decided to go knock doors in the super-rich people houses.  Normally these are the stiffnecked people who are learned and think they are wise, and it's a lot easier to knock trailer parks because the people are compelled to be humble.  However, we just felt like we needed to turn down a particular street and knock the doors on it.  It didn't matter that the door itself costs as much as someone else's house.  And I met the vice president of sales to south america for UPS.  Guess what? He was baptized in Puerto Rico when he was 11.  Guess what else?  He's inactive and is married with 2 kids that he was very excited to have us teach.  Unexpected, yes.  Accidental, no.  Anywho, that's this week's miracle.  I'm not surprised at all that missionaries go home.  Missions are hard.  But I'm not even halfway done and I'm already almost blind from overexposure to pure awesomeness.  So it's definitely worth it.  There are missionaries who, for a variety of reasons, cannot serve.  I find no fault with that.  Elder Oaks talked about desire in the last conference.  My last companion, Elder, now Jayson, Kennington was an extraordinary example of the overriding desire to serve a full-time mission despite difficulties.  Before he was called here, he had submitted his papers twice and been honorably excused and deemed physically (mentally) unable to serve...twice.  He struggled immensely with the spanish language.  He had difficulty remembering things because he got very, very sick during high school.  I'm talking bi-polar, manic-depressive, inanimate objects talking to you and telling you to harm yourself sick.  Thanks to the atonement of Jesus Christ, modern medicine, and the money from 9 cows, he was able to serve a full 2 years as one of the greatest missionaries I have ever seen.  Not because he was eloquent or because he was brilliant, persuasive, or charming, in fact, he wasn't any of those, but because he wanted to do what was right and he did it.

Happy Father's Day!

Love,

Elder Fine