"I Saw You On TV!"

So coming home Wednesday night, in my exhaustion, I forgot that a large amount of water had entered into the corridor and had a clumsy moment...

...and became slightly bruised and very wet. Super torpe!

Pickett Christmas preparation: the only snowfall in Honduras

Hello, all! So I was famous this week, but not for a very happy reason. So that's a bummer.

Moment of silence: the two sisters who were missing last week, Maria Jose and Sofia Alvarado, were found deceased and subsequently buried this week. The two young women were members of the Church, as is their mother. I am so grateful for the gift of this gospel and the blessings of eternal families. On Thursday morning (TV day) we went to the home of Teresa, the mother, to have a small service before the burial. Despite the horrendous display of the press (any desire I could have ever had to work in news reporting is completely gone), the most difficult scene of the day was the desconsolate state of Teresa. Never in my life have I witnessed such utter agony. At the same time, I have never been so astonished by an overwhelming exibition of hope as I was yesterday, when we returned with Teresa to the cemetary to dedicate her daughters' graves. From the weeping, inconsolable woman we saw on Thursday, we then saw  woman, clearly in pain, but already smiling at the mention of daughters' names, hopely looking forward to the day that she will be able to enter into the temple of the Lord, her daughters' names in hand, and bring about a work for the living and the dead, making possible that her famil will be eternal. You can't find that anywhere else in the world, just in the temple. That's pretty amazing.

So anyway, the funeral and events leading to and following it took up a large part of our week. I am happy to report, on a good news note, that Delmy and two of her triplets came to church yesterday. That was a pretty big deal for them, because various pairs of missionaries have been visiting Delmy for over a year and she's never come to church. But her's is another case wherein the promise of eternal families is absolutely necessary. I have pretty high hopes for her, for her triplets, and for her late husband and son. I already made this point, but I'll say it again: you don't find the blessings that keep families together forever anywhere else in the world. Only in the temple. In my reading of Jesus the Christ this week (I finished it again, but I think I'll read it once more before coming home. It's just too good), I found an interesting statement from Elder Talmage. It is presumptious indeed for man to assume power upon himself and then expect God to honor the ordinances he has performed with his pretended authority. If we want God to honor a promise, we should make it with Him, not with someone who will later have the audacity to make demands of the Divine. And how can we make promises with God here in the world? By making them through someone to whom God has entrusted a piece of that power. That's why the Restoration happened. For details, ask the missionaries. They can help :)

So this letter is going to be pretty short, because our time management skills were a little off today. But here's one more nugget of spiritual goodness. This morning I was reading a talk by President Monson in which he began telling stories about his experiences with following promptings. President Monson has good stories about following spiritual promptings--saving people from committing suicide, arriving just before someone passed away to give them a blessing, sending a slightly wayward boyscout back down the missionary/temple path. And I was thinking, maybe you just have to be an apostle or the prophet to have Monson level experiences with the Spirit. But President Monson corrected me on that! He said that the more we pay attention and following the promptings we receive, the more the Lord will trust us to fulfill His errands. So, want to be the answer to someone's prayer this week? Follow the simple whisperings of the Spirit, even in things that seem insignificant. Follow them right away. Then, when the Lord needs to send an angel from our side of the veil to bless one of His children, He will consider you and think, "Yes, I trust this son, or, I trust this daughter. I shall send him/her." Pretty cool prospect, right?

Well, longer letter next week, I promise! Have a splendid Thanksgiving, count your blessings, never postpone a prompting, and start listening to Christmas music!

Con mucho amor,
Hermana Pickett