The Last Letter

I look back on these two years, my heart having grown twice its size, and my eyes having seen the profound depths of Heaven and Hell. My mind turns and tumbles like a washing machine, yet my emotions spread out along the ridges of a Cape Verdian wash tub. They wait for that visceral force that will senselessly push up and down those agonizing ridges. 6 days left on the field, and I think to myself "Wasn't it just yesterday that I just got here?" 

I think back to that evening of May of 2011 remembering that the setting sun was especially golden. It made the rocks, the fields, and the waters of the coast of Santiago shine in such a way that was breathtaking and unforgettable. I was, then, a new missionary that was just barely starting to lose his green. I was still a clueless teacher and a stubborn servant. Yet, there I was standing in the turquoise clear waters of the lagoon just a few minutes north of the church. The mercy of the Lord was upon us in its fullness. I looked over into the eyes of my best friend after having just baptized him and I said "Now we can be together forever in the kingdom of God".

How is it found in his loving kindness that the Lord permitted someone like me to have such an experience? What I have just written was a short description of my first convert baptism as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Somehow, it was found in his great wisdom and convenience that I came here for a short time to work for the salvation of souls. This privilege has left a profound mark on my heart and soul that can now never be removed. Before coming here, I did not think that one's heart could swell this big. I did not think that the soul could be filled with so much compassion, so much charity that one could completely lose himself and forget his own existence in the service that he embarked. But that is the effect that the mission tends to have on those who try their best to serve in all righteousness. It is the cure to all selfishness, the secret to true happiness, and the key for an exceptional, loving relationship with our Father in Heaven.

The past two years have been nothing short of a miracle. They have taught me the ways that a true man takes. A true man looks for God in everything he does. A true man seeks to become humble, meek, and submissive. Any other way is complete senselessness. These past two years have taught me the greatness and endless power of our living God, and they have taught me my own boundaries. I am weak and inadequate in my own state. Nevertheless, Heavenly Father grants me his strength, his love, and his incomparable power as I turn to him and ask for his help in all things.

"I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13)

"I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from Hell. I have charity for my people, and great faith in Christ that I shall meet many souls spotless at his judgment seat" (2 Nephi 33:6-7)

Through my feet, the Lord has walked thousands of miles finding his lost sheep. Through my hands, the Lord has touched the lives of those who I never met before, yet they are now my brothers and sisters in Christ. Through my heart, the Lord has taught scripture in its fullness of power and meaning to me and to them, and through my heart has persuaded many to accept the sacred promises with Heavenly Father that now enable them to prepare to return to his loving arms.

I already miss the hustle and bustle of Avenida Lisboa, in Fazenda in the center of the city of Praia. I miss the warmth, love and laughter of the people of Fogo (The promise land, I call it) I miss the silence, isolation and indescribable beauty of Brava. This country is unparalleled to me, and it has a place in my heart that possible no other event in the course of my lifetime will be able to find. I will lock these memories away until the day that I can fall to my knees in tears and gratitude to my creator, my God. I will remember every moment of these two years until the time comes to see these people again beyond the veil in their fullness of glory and joy.

How I wish like never before that I could turn back time. I would give anything to be back on the streets of Sao Filipe with Elder Weiss. I would love to take one more boat ride to Brava with Elder Abularach. I miss all the nights walking home in Mindelo with Elder Fernandes after having helped Andirson and his family drew one step closer to baptism. They are one of the first families that I am going to look for beyond the veil. I long for just one more division with Elder Reeser, probably the best friend I made out here outside the companions that I served with.

But now it's all over. I hold in my hand the boarding pass to TACV Flight VR690, the flight that will take me away from here. Never again on this Earth will I be able to preach the Gospel of our Lord like this. It is time that the most intense, humbling, educative and spiritual chapter of my life comes to a close, and though almost all may be taken away from me when I step on that airplane, it is once again in his knowledge and infinite wisdom and love that I take home with me this one thing.

It is with every particle of my heart and faith and knowledge that I bear testimony of the one true living God who knows all things. He loves us with a perfect and endless love. He has forgotten none of his children, and he honors all his promises. He has called prophets, leaders, and missionaries to find his children, teach them and lead them to know of their Father in Heaven. I testify that I am a child of God and that it is because of this one true statement that my eyes have seen the fullness of his love, his mercy, his patience and the suffering of his children who disobey him. This is the one true living church that contains the once lost precious truths of our Lord and Savior. Christ lives. Joseph Smith was His chosen prophet in these last days to restore the Gospel. I love my Savior, his church, and this magnificent work.

"Shall we not go on in so great a cause"In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.

Elder Gianluca Cuestas
Cape Verde Praia Mission
2010-2012

She is a diamond in the rough!

I thought that last week flew by....this week was lightning speed, and I am pretty sure that next week will be too.

I think that I have mentioned before that there are many challenges in Bela Vista and that we have slowly but surely working to overcome them. Well, there are weeks where it seems that we have overcome the challenges, and there are other weeks where stuff just kind of blows up in your face and the difficulties come back. That is kind of how things work in missionary work...but it’s all good.

So I said last week on how we have been focusing all our forces on Odete and her family. Things are going pretty good up to a certain point. It’s interesting that things have been kind of going the same way with many investigators that we’re working with. As I pointed out before, Onze drinks and smokes and Odete drinks coffee. We have taught them about the Word of Wisdom and invited them to live it. Interesting that this is where most people have the most struggles. Well Onze hasn’t been drinking for almost three weeks now, and Odete doesn’t drink coffee anymore. Onze used to smoke about 20 cigarettes a day and is now smoking 2. This is incredible progress...yet when it comes to going to church, this is where they struggle. They’re completing the hardest steps in converting to the Gospel, yet they have missed church for a few weeks now. Odete came this past Sunday, but Onze could not make it. We would like to get them to baptism, and I have all the faith that the Lord will make things work out...it’s just sometimes the natural man in me that gets a bit frustrated when things don’t happen as expected. I know all this is the Lord teaching me patience and longsuffering. I love this family very much; thus it breaks my heart when they don’t do what they need to do to receive all the blessings they deserve. The biggest concern is that Onze is trying to find a way to get this surgery to happen with the means that he has. Obviously this is something that the whole family is concerned about, so focusing on this and our lessons can be quite difficult at times. We’re trying to teach them to make the connection that obedience to God’s commandments entitles any of his children to the divine help and miracles that they need in their lives. I have a pure testimony of this because I have seen it so many times in my life and in the lives of all the people we have helped get over their problems. Well, obviously we will keep working with them, and I hope that this week we can make a major progress with them.

Another person we’re working with has made a huge step in improvement, and she is now our top priority. A while back we were working with a woman named Firmina and some weeks after her baptism, we started kind of having side conversations with her mom Maria. She started sitting in on our lessons with Firmina, and one night at the end of a lesson, she asked if she could have a copy of the Book of Mormon. This threw us off… Maria is an older woman, probably somewhere in her late 50s, and most people her age here can’t read or write, or are just "too old for a new religion" as they put it. So we got her the book of Mormon as soon as possible and started marking appointments just for her. Well the first few times we thought that this was going to go nowhere. She complained so much when we had our appointments to teach her, and she would make excuses such as "there is too much wind" or "it’s too hot" These excuses would drive us a bit crazy ha-ha. I’m sure that Satan was trying to distract us from the true potential that she has as an investigator. Well, we kept persisting because she’s the mom of two of our recent converts. We thought we would teach her the Word of Wisdom to see if she would be able to progress. We came back two days later to see her in a really bad mood. We asked how everything was going. She replied "I’m not drinking coffee, are you guys happy?! We laughed and encouraged her to go to church this weekend. She grumbled a bit more and then said that she would be there. Well, there she was this weekend in the first session of general conference at the church. This was huge, and she told us that she’ll never drink coffee again. To make a long story short, we went to visit her at her house yesterday and had a long talk about why she was doing all this. We also taught her the law of chastity because she lives with a man...as so many people do here.

Right there, she told us everything. She told us that she was living with this man for 3 years and that it was the biggest mistake of her life. She told us on how she longs to be by herself and that she’s sick of all the arguments and problems that this man has been causing. He drinks and gets in these moods where he makes the atmosphere of the home impossible. She said that when she started going to church, and started reading the Book of Mormon she felt at peace, something she had not felt in three years. She said that she’s the happiest that she’s ever been since moving in that house. She had been thinking for the longest time in separating from her companion and all this confirmed her desire. Now that we brought the law of chastity into all this, she will now make a choice on what she wants to do next. All she knows is that she wants to get baptized. She is a miracle investigator, a diamond in the rough!!

Abilio and Sandra are again stuck...well it turns out that Sandra has to make a choice between migrating to another place due to some papers that her sister was able to put in, or stay and get married.  We’re talking with them this week to see where she is at. It’s just kind of sad that she would leave her family and children just to migrate...it’s nothing out of the ordinary here. We just need to have tons of patience with her.

Elder Fogelberg and I are doing extremely well. He’s growing and changing so much. Every week he makes major improvements on his teaching and his desire to be on the mission. He’s a brother to me, and I’m going to miss him so much when I leave. We have talked about this several times. I love this guy to death, and I know that the Lord has called us to be together. I would say that he has kept me in line these last two transfers, so that I can continue working my heart out.

Elder Cuestas

I feel that through the Lord, I can handle anything!

This week we’re working and concentrating all our efforts on Odete and her family. I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but Odete has 5 children and lives with her partner Onze. This family is relatively poor, but nothing like Jocyleida and Andirson. Onze works for the city hall picking up trash from the public containers. Odete sells fish and mostly takes care of the children. When the children are at school, she is out on the streets selling fish. It’s interesting that this is one of the happiest families that I have met on my mission, despite all their afflictions. Onze has a serious problem in his leg which requires a metal plate being inserted, to which he doesn’t have the money or means to do so. He walks and works but with extreme pain. The family lives very far from the church, but has already made it twice without anyone having to look for them.

Last week, we taught them the word of wisdom, as Onze has a drinking and smoking problem, and Odete drinks coffee. Normally it’s extremely difficult to get any man to even want to desire to stop drinking, but Onze has been doing an excellent job cutting down and going many days at a time without drinking and fighting extreme headaches because of this. Odete also is fighting caffeine withdrawal and serious headaches as well. They’re all very humble, and we have grown very close to them. We had just taught them the Law of chastity, and they told us that they would ponder on marriage. They probably won’t be able to get married until after I go, but at least I can do everything to place things in order, so that Elder Fogelberg can carry out the rest.

Abilio and Sandra had a very rough time recently with keeping their commitments, but it seems that they’re finally on track as they’re coming back to church and getting their act together.  Interesting thing is that some 4 weeks ago, Abilio passed out drunk on his bed and Sandra sitting by his side with a scowl on her face. We did not even know at the time that Abilio had a drinking problem. We asked if we could pull Sandra aside and talk. She agreed. She talked about how Abilio was going to have to make some major changes before she would agree to marry him, like stop drinking being priority number one. We found Abilio that next day and taught him the Word of Wisdom. He reacted much more humbly than we had expected and promised that he would leave the habit. He seemed to do it with great ease and has not touched a drop since. I love this guy. He has some real humility, and it touches my heart how important the Gospel has become in his life. He receives us with such warmth, and we have spent ample time just talking with him and getting to know more about his life. Hopefully we would be able to mark a date for their wedding soon.

Joana was baptized this weekend, and everything went really well. Joana has suffered quite a bit in her life, now living alone with 2 children. I have seen the difference in how her afflictions have humbled her. She does everything by her feelings, so the Gospel was music to her ears seeing how the spirit played such a big role in her life. I’m really proud of her and how far she has come. Many times we’ve walked by her front door and have caught her reading the Book of Mormon by herself. She has a very strong spirit, and I have no doubt that she’s going to grow quickly in this magnificent Gospel.

This weekend was District conference (like stake conference) and all the members of Mindelo were there. I saw most of my recent converts, and I am glad to see that almost everyone is  active. Andirson is still preparing to get the Melchezidek Preisthood and is strong in the church. I saw Anna and Margarida and some other members that I was close with. Mindelo 1 is one of my favorite branches that I have worked with in my mission, and it was so great to see everyone again.

As for the feeling of going home...it’s a bitter sweet feeling. My heart is like a washing machine right now. There are so many great things that I know I’m going to enjoy going home, but a big part of my heart though is also preparing for one of the biggest shocks I’m going to have in my life and having to cope with the fact that it’ll all be over soon. I’ve converted to this mission so much, and it means to me what words cannot describe. This mission has such a profound impact on my heart, and it’ll be over in three weeks. I’ll never live a part of my life like this again. I’ll never be in this country again as a missionary. So right now, I am happy as happy can be and sad as sad can be. I wonder if that is even possible, but that’s what I believe I feel.

The friends that I’ll be leaving are the most painful part of this journey. All these wonderful people… I know the Lord will be taking care of them, but how I wish I didn’t have to say goodbye. I love these people like I have never loved before. My heart has gone through the ends of the world for these people, and I have lost myself in service to them. It hasn’t been easy, but is an experience that I’ll never, never, NEVER take back.

I’m the most proud of the fact that I believe that I have the necessary tools to be an active member of this Gospel for the rest of my life. I’m proud that through all the joy, pain, and hard work, I’ll always feel that I did my best with the knowledge that I had. I’m the most proud that I know God so much more than I used to and that now I have a true reason to be a member of this church, and definitively, I’m proud of the fact that now I’m stronger, more mature, and numb to life’s problems. I feel that through the Lord, I can handle anything!

Elder Cuestas