Hola Todos,
I responded to some personal letters and wrote to the mission president today fisrt and wrote a little more than I meant to.
This week has been great. I'm getting along well with Elder Castanos and on the 26th of this month we'll be able to see the baptisms of Rafael Alvarez, the District President's uncle, and Sharitza Camilo, Felipe's sister. We're also helping Miguel Quesada, a man Elder McGlothin and I contacted, prepare for baptism n the 9th of April.
Anyhow, here's a thought that came to me while cleaning earlier in the day.
I guess we always have rules in this life because somebody that came before us made the rule necesary. I was thinking the same thing today as I deap-cleaned the stove in our house, which i'm pretty sure haddn't been cleaned for about two years before I got there. It took a lot of elbow grease to counteract all that kitchen grease. But I'd been putting it off for a while. I kept rationalizing that I wasn't the one to have made the mess (there was no foil to protect the stove), so I shouldn't have to fix it. In the end, I did it anyways. It made me think a lot about my mission and the ...obstacles... that happend in the work here in the years before I arived. A lot of other missionaries may not have put in their part, but that's all the more reason that I really need to do everything I can to correct the results of their mistakes that they've left behind, as I've tried my very hardest to do durring the couse of my mission. Sometimes repentance requires help from someone else, and we should always be willing and in tune wih the spirit to help best. That stove looks great now, but it deffinitely didn't before. It's the same way with all of the tasks with which the Lord entrusts us with in this life. Weather it be our companion, our area, a calling, children, or the new missionaries in our ward, we can always be instruments in the hands of the Lord to to improve the situation. Can we forget the parable of the talents, and how the Lord dealt with the slothful servant who failed to produce interest and magnify his calling? I hope that all of us can always remember to magnify our callings in this life to the verry best that our opportunities provide.
I love you guys! Stay stong in the faith!
Cuidense!
Elder Adam Russell Rich,
San Pedro, Republica Dominicana
