We
did lots of unplanned service this week, and that has helped us find
lots of new investigators. We mixed concrete by hand to help a man build
his house. We picked and carried rock for a man that also wants to
build his house. We carried bricks up staircases to help another man
build his house. There are a lot of people building their houses, and
it´s hard work so they always accept our help. He´re working with the
bishop to help a less active man named Julio overcome alcoholism.
Sometimes we tend to think that addictions take away our agency, at
least in some degree. But what I have seen this week in working with
Julio is that with addictions we don´t lose our agency in any degree,
but we lose the hope that we can change. And that can be recovered. On Saturday night Julio fell into his addiction, got drunk, and got himself
into a fight with someone that was also drunk. When we found him
yesterday, he had two black eyes, cuts all over his face and back and a
part of his ear had been bitten off by the man. Julio had rubber gloves,
gauz, and rubbing alcohol in his house so I got to remember life guarding times and I cleaned his wounds. He had two really deep cuts
in his back that looked like they were from a broken beer bottle. They
were full of dirt so they took a while to clean. We told him that he
needed to go to the hospital to get stitches in his back, sohe´s going
to go today. I had never cleaned someone´s wounds before as a service
and the feeling I had while doing it was different from the feeling I
have while doing other service. I feel like it was the pure love of
Christ. He had brought this pain upon himself, but he couldn´t clean his
wounds by himself.
I´m learning a lot here in Magdalena and I´m enjoying my time with Elder Alfaro. I hope you all have a great week!
Elder Jones
No comments:
Post a Comment