June 9, 2010

My Dear Family,

I am so grateful to be able to say that I have a dear family and that I love, and they love me.

Thank you for the reports of the week. I appreciate understanding what is going on, and if in anyway they are going to affect me, they will most certainly be for the better.

The first lesson we teach as missionaries has the first principle titled, Nuestro Amoroso Padre Celestial, or Our Loving Heavenly Father. This principle is only about 3 or four short paragraphs long and begins with the first sentence saying. God is our loving Heavenly Father. We are his children. He loves communicating with us and we do so through prayer. He has sent us to this earth to learn and to grow. When we disobey His commandments He is sad. We show our love for Him by obeying His commandments.

I especially love, and am grateful for, the knowledge that I have of why I am here. We are here for 2 purposes. 1) To gain a mortal, physical body...CHECK! 2) To gain earthly experience away from the physical presence of Heavenly Father...STILL IN PROCESS! In other words we are here for the simple and seemingly complex reason to be tested and tried, to experience sorrow and joy, to know the good and the bad, to have problems and successes. In the end, having overcome all challenges, having selected to choose Jesus Christ and His everlasting Gospel over Satan, the father of all lies.

What a purpose, huh? These sure are difficult times, and I can see the same trials that our family is facing here in Spain. There are husbands here who have been separated from their wives and family for 8, 9, 10 years, while they have been trying to work and get ahead, enough to be able to provide for their families in their respective countries. I can´t imagine being in a situation like that, and yet trials as such come to all. This was explained in detail before we chose to accept the plan before the world was. How grateful we are that we were faithful in keeping our first estate. 1 down, 1 to go.

I think in times like these, and I don´t know too much, so you could just stop reading if you wanted to, but in times like these we need to just stop, pray, breathe, study the scriptures, go to the temple, and just refocus on this mission and goal that we have, to live worthily to enter into the presence of the Father and the Son after this very, very, very, short testing period. We can do it! I know that you have already done these things and always do them. How grateful I am to be apart of a family that does these things daily.

I am sorry that times are rough right now, and I am praying for you. This Sunday I heard a really neat story that I want to tell you. It was heard that a man who had been lost at see for many days ended up at an island in the middle of nowhere with no habitants. He, trying to think ahead, built a shelter for the night. As it was getting dark, he went to look for some last minute materials before he crawled in for the night. After having found what he needed he returned to his shelter, and to his shock and horror, it had caught fire, and in seconds, his days work had been burnt to ashes. He began to blame and curse God, asking, ¨why me?¨ After throwing a tantrum for several minutes he eventually fell asleep, cold and tired. The next day, early in the morning, when he awoke, he spotted a boat headed his way. When the captain landed on shore, the lost man asked him ¨How did you know I was here?¨ The captain replied, well, from the smoke signals you sent us.

This story is a lot like our lives. We hardly, if ever, blame God for anything that happens to us, but sometimes we forget or lose focus, just a little, the God knows all things. He is perfect and knows everything from the beginning. And the best thing about God is that He loves us. If we are trying to love Him, by obeying His commandments, we can have the assurance that He will take care of us. Things will work out and before long we will see, like the lost sailor, that the barriers and trials that were placed before us are for our, eternal, if not for our temporal welfare. We, a little bit more faithful than this lost sailor, just need to pray for the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and follow it, doing our very best to do the will of our loving Heavenly Father. Things rarely work out the way we want them too and even rarer, when we want them to, but, yes, they always work out. In some way, we can see the tender mercies of the Lord and be witnesses that He continues today, to be a God of miracles.

Dad, when you told me, last week, about this job offer that you had from this company in Washington, I had a feeling I have never had before, when you have had other job offers that required us to move. I had a feeling that was good. Maybe it was the excitement of moving to another state or just the adventure in itself. But you know me, I hated the idea of moving. But when I read that, I was surprised at the way I felt. I thought that maybe it is what we are supposed to do. But I love having the peace of mind that I don´t have to make the decision. That revelation and guidance will come through the patriarch of the family, that being dad. I have complete and absolute confidence in you Dad, and know that you are in tune with the Spirit and will make the decisions, consistent with your feelings, that will be best for the eternal benefit of our family. I will be praying a lot for you all this week and I hope that this week will be one of the most spiritual weeks as a family, as we strive to make decisions in accordance with the plans that our loving Heavenly Father has for us.

I was so excited to get a letter from Cami. I am going to write her next week, maybe through mail, but I will write her next week. Tell her that so she can be expecting it.

The work is great here and we have two baptismal dates. They both have desires to know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ. I love being completely involved in the beautiful work of the Lord.

Transfers are this next week and I am suspecting that maybe Elder Moreno will leave the area. He only has three transfers left and I think that they might kick him out to a pueblo. But who knows.

Keep praying for me, please, and those that we are teaching.

I love you all,

Elder Driggs