Mango Mania

Alaina with her new companion Sis N

Hello world!

It's raining mangos here in Belize. 

So mango season is upon us and seriously it’s a mango flood. Everyone sees the missionaries and thinks,

“Ah. Poor missionaries! They probably need some food! I will give them these 4,000 mangos that fell from my neighbor’s tree". 

 

Thus it is. As such thinks every person in Belize. We graciously accept every mango donation, but I literally do not know what to do with all of them. At first, I did not even like them. But due to necessity I ate them, trying to put a dent in the mass of mangos we had accumulated.

 

Then, I started to like them. 

Now. 

I can’t stop. 

3....4....5 a day. I’m on a mango craze. I’ve lost taste for all other foods. I just want MANGOS. 

Still, I couldn’t manage to keep up with the incoming flow of mangos. So I have started re-gifting them. At first I tried making them into other things--like juice, face masks, lotions. Then I began burying them and after that burning them. But, al final, I decided to just give them away. (Any true SpongeBob fan will appreciate that quip. best ep evaaa)

 

Additionally, R GOT BAPTIZED. R is a super cool kid actually. But I will admit that with this weekend I experienced the highest levels of cortisol I have ever known in my whole life. I was trying everything to get my heart rate down to a normal pace the day of his baptism.

 

If only you knew him. 

 

R was engaged in some not-so-constructive-activities before we met him. But this is a gospel of change. The night before his baptism, we asked him if he reallllllly believed what we had taught. 

 

"Of course it’s true. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t true. I know I’m ready"

Which leads me to this:

 

During the 1940s and 1950s, an American prison warden, Clinton Duffy,was well known for his efforts to rehabilitate the men in his prison. Said one critic, “You should know that leopards don’t change their spots!”

Replied Warden Duffy, “You should know I don’t work with leopards. I work with men, and men change every day.”¹

 

Also I like this quote a lot--courtesy of President Thomas S Monson. So the point is, we need to try and see others as they may become--not as their currently are. Another one of my favorite quotes is this, from the one and only C.S. Lewis. The thing is I know you will see this quote and tremble at its exceeding length--but--just read it. You will thank yourself afterwards.

 

 

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment."

 

Whaaaat. Yes! We all have the potential of becoming like our Father in Heaven. People do change. Through our Lord and Savior. So I am trying to work on patience. With everyone. Because patience means that we trust in the Lord, that we don't get angry in traffic or in the line at the grocery store when things don't go exactly according to our plan. And that we trust that if we are doing the right thing, nothing can go permanently wrong. Christ is, as in all God-like attributes, the perfect example of patience. Love people. Believe in them. Help them change. Be kind. Please be kind.

 

 

Guys. Not a lot of crazy things happened this week. I just grew a lot. In faith mostly. Also in patience. I love the gospel. I love learning! I love learning so much and it’s amazing how clear your mind is when you pray. Prayer is something really neat. It will be the iPhone 4000 I think. #Godstechnology>mans.

 

I love you all. More on the mangos next week.

Love faheva,

 

SISTA HIRSCHI