Farewell Flakes!

Leaders in the Cayo District gathered to thank and to bid farewell to Elder and Sister Flake as they conclude two years of service among them. District president Amin Salazar (back row, far left) organized the dinner.

A wasp nest was on the outside of our front door. When the sister missionaries saw it they insisted it be removed, so they volunteered to take care of it. In turn, the missionaries' front door needed a repair so it would lock properly, so that was addressed.  

The day dawn was spectacular on our early morning drive to the multi-zone conference in Belize City last week. It was reminiscent of the dawning of the Restoration of the Gospel, beginning in the year 1820.

The 26 young missionaries and four senior couples of Belize were blessed by the training of President and Sister Adams and the assistants at the conference.   

Of course, the zone conference included a delicious lunch, organized by Sister Jensen.  It was my first time of having taco-in-a-bag.  

Stacy Rosado of Succotz was baptized Saturday by Elder Flake. Sisters Kruyer and Donakey were privileged to teach Stacy over a period of several months. Stacy gained a testimony of the gospel through study, living God's commandments, and asking Him, as directed in James 1:5 of the New Testament.

Lloyd Chi and Shaneel Burgess participate in their weekly Pathway gathering for their Life Skills class, an extension of Brigham Young University-Idaho.

What's it like to be in a heavy downpour? This is the view of the village from our house in the rain.

I heard the sister missionaries sing Gethsemane in a meeting this week.  I remember hearing the song for the first time a few years ago.  The lyrics are simple enough that even a child can understand the message of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

You can also see the video by clicking here

You can get a copy of the piano music by clicking here.

Gethsemane

By Melanie Hoffman

Jesus climbed the hill to the garden still.
His steps were heavy and slow.
Love and a prayer took Him there
To the place only He could go.
Gethsemane. Jesus loves me,
So He went willingly to Gethsemane.

He felt all that was sad, wicked, or bad,
All the pain we would ever know.
While His friends were asleep, He fought to keep
His promise made long ago.
Gethsemane. Jesus loves me,
So He went willingly to Gethsemane.

The hardest thing that ever was done,
The greatest pain that ever was known,
The biggest battle that ever was won—
This was done by Jesus!
The fight was won by Jesus!
Gethsemane. Jesus loves me,
So He gave His gift to me in Gethsemane.
Gethsemane. Jesus loves me,
So He gives His gift to me from Gethsemane.

© 2016 by Melanie Hoffman. All rights reserved. This song may be copied for incidental, non-commercial church or home use. This notice must be included on each copy made.

News from Belize and Rome

Wednesday we met with the Belmopan district. (From right to left) Elders Blackburn, Price, Pendleton, Hicken, Suarez, Gray, Wingett, and Saunders. Why are they smiling? They truly are happy to be sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.  

District leader Elder Hicken (second from the left) opens the meeting by leading the group in the singing of a hymn.

The Ical family lives on the hill above our house, accessed from the trail. As their two sons play in the yard, the white steeple from our church can be seen in the distance.

Jacob Ical showed us a piece of presumably an ancient hand grinding stone that he uncovered behind his house. His wife, Adelina, teaches the sister missionaries how to make tortillas. 

Charles and Glenda Young, along with their granddaughter, reside in Spanish Lookout. We enjoyed looking at family photos with them.  We were able to upload several old photos to familysearch.orgThese photos are of Charles and Glenda when they met in Santa Elena.  We were able to upload them and other photos to their family tree. Charles is open about the huge improvements he made in his life when he embraced the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Click here to learn more about how Family Search works. 

Today in Primary we learned the song, Jesus Once Was a Little Child. It was fun to have the children stand next to the tape measure on the wall so they could see that Jesus was once a little child like they are. 

The message of the song is in the chorus:  

     So little children,

     Let's you and I,

     Try to be like him,

     Try, try, try.  

We like to shop at Helen Supermarket in San Ignacio. Lee, the proprietor, goes out of his way to be friendly to us and all his customers.

While we may not endorse the product on the sign, we do endorse Helen Supermarket!

The open house for the Rome Italy Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began this week on the other side of the world from us. Take a moment to "walk through" this exquisite house of the Lord.

You can also view the video by clicking here

A Week of Opportunities

We were in Belize City on mission business this week with Elder and Sister VandeMerwe. Just couldn't pass up this view across the Caribbean Sea!  

(Note the beware of crocodiles sign on the left!)

Want to feel young again? Join us at the next Young Single Adult activity in San Ignacio. Saturday night, 24 energetic, friendly, and hungry young adults came together for an evening of fun, food, and lots of games.

We've received an additional assignment to serve as Pathway missionaries in San Ignacio. Pathway is the Church's on-line university program for international students where they begin their first-year towards a bachelors degree or a certificate. Our role is to facilitate the weekly gathering of the students as they assist each other in their studies. Our District President Amin Salazar looks on in the background.

The zone leaders and sister training leaders met in their every-six-weeks training meeting with President Adams who was in El Salvador conducting the meeting with the other missionary leaders. The miracle of telecommunications is truly a way the Lord's work spreads across the world.

It's appropriate that Elder and Sister Flake stand next to the Belize national flag. What a blessing they have been to the people and Church leaders in this country the past two years. They conclude their mission in two weeks. They will be missed.

In District Council this week we welcomed two new sisters who just arrived from El Salvador-- Sister Thompson (far right) and Sister Donakey (second from the left). They with Sisters Kruyer and Holdsworth form a strong team in the Cayo District. It is a blessing to work alongside them.

Last Sunday we were in the capital city of Belmopan to attend the Maya Mopan Branch. The branch meets in a rented house. Inside, I prepared to play the electronic keyboard for the service while the branch presidency finalized the program.

Elder Magnusson had been asked to conduct training after the service for the branch council on the Come, Follow Me manual for families, and on ministering. We felt the sweet, humble spirit that prevails among these members, nearly all of them Spanish-speaking.

I was touched to receive a gift from our friend, Isaiah Gillet of Belize City--a bag with the image of the Oakland California Temple. It's the temple that's closest to where I grew up and where I married Elder Magnusson. Thank you, Isaiah!

This week during our scripture study time, Elder Magnusson and I read Luke l:5-25, 57-80.  We learned that "God's blessings come in His own time".  This message from our New Testament study manual was very timely for me:  

For whatever reasons, God’s timing meant that the blessing Elisabeth and Zacharias desired, to have a child, came much later than they expected. If you find yourself having to wait for a blessing, or if it seems that God isn’t hearing your prayers, the story of Elisabeth and Zacharias can be a reminder that He hasn’t forgotten you. He has a plan for you, and He always keeps His promises to His righteous Saints. As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland promised, “Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come” (“An High Priest of Good Things to Come,” Ensign, Nov. 1999, 38). How did Zacharias and Elisabeth remain faithful? (see Luke 1:5–25, 57–80). Do you find yourself waiting for a blessing? What do you feel the Lord expects of you while you wait?

When I read Elder Holland's quote, I was reminded of one of my favorite Mormon Message videos, "Good Things to Come". 

You can also see the video by clicking here

Happy New Year!

We celebrated New Year's Eve by wishing Sister VandeMerwe a happy birthday over lunch, together with the other senior missionaries serving in Belize.

Santa doesn't always wear a red suit and have a beard; sometimes he has a missionary tag and a tie!  Elder and Sister Flake delivered another one of Elder Flake's beautiful picnic tables he's made.

Because we were married on December 28, we received this Wisemen set as a wedding gift. (dip and drape crafts were the rage back in 1977)  As we have set up these Wisemen throughout the years, we've been reminded of two things:  our December 28th wedding, as well as the story of the Wise Men visiting the Christ child.

During our 41 years of marriage, we have collected many nativity sets.  The one on the left is a ceramic set lovingly hand-made by our sister-in-law, Kerri. Ever since we arrived in Belize, I've been on the lookout for a nativity that I can bring home to remind us not only of the birth of the Savior, but also of our missionary service.  I'm happy that I was able to find one of native hardwoods this past week at the Art Box Store in Belmopan.

Speaking of nativity sets, we have enjoyed cutting out and sharing paper nativity sets to the children here. This past Christmas season we were able to pass out about 50 paper nativity sets to the children we've come in contact with.

This young girl enjoyed coloring and setting up her nativity set.  

The Santa Elena branch members gather to congratulate two children and their family on their day of baptism. Sisters Holdsworth and Arteaga taught them.

It's a small world after all.  Elder Magnusson bids farewell to his friend Andrés from Belize City who soon departs to continue his studies at BYU-Idaho. Andrés' contact in Idaho is the brother of our son-in-law, and they met in the Middle East! 

Looking for a new year's resolution that we all could use?-- "Look Not Behind Thee"!

You can also see the video by clicking here. 

Elder Holland gave a BYU devotional on the same topic that is featured on our family blog.  You can visit  the blog by clicking here.  The highlights of his talk are below:

Remember Lot's Wife  

by Jeffery R. Holland

As a scriptural theme for this discussion, I have chosen the second-shortest verse in all of holy scripture. It is Luke 17:32, where the Savior cautions, “Remember Lot’s wife.”

The original story, of course, comes to us out of the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, when the Lord, having had as much as He could stand of the worst that men and women could do, told Lot and his family to flee because those cities were about to be destroyed. “Escape for thy life,” the Lord said, “look not behind thee . . . ; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed” (Genesis 19:17; emphasis added).

With less than immediate obedience and more than a little negotiation, Lot and his family ultimately did leave town, but just in the nick of time. The scriptures tell us what happened at daybreak the morning following their escape:

The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;  And he overthrew those cities. [Genesis 19:24–25]

With the Lord’s counsel “look not behind thee” ringing clearly in her ears, Lot’s wife, the record says, “looked back.”

It is possible that Lot’s wife looked back with resentment toward the Lord for what He was asking her to leave behind. It isn’t just that she looked back; she looked back longingly. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future.

I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone, nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. We remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives. So a more theological way to talk about Lot’s wife is to say that she did not have faith. She doubted the Lord’s ability to give her something better than she already had. She thought that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as those moments she was leaving behind.

There is something in us, at least in too many of us, that particularly fails to forgive and forget earlier mistakes in life—either mistakes we ourselves have made or the mistakes of others. That is not good. It is not Christian. It stands in terrible opposition to the grandeur and majesty of the Atonement of Christ. To be tied to earlier mistakes—our own or other people’s—is the worst kind of wallowing in the past from which we are called to cease and desist.

I can’t tell you the number of couples I have counseled who, when they are deeply hurt or even just deeply stressed, reach farther and farther into the past to find yet a bigger brick to throw through the window “pain” of their marriage. When something is over and done with, when it has been repented of as fully as it can be repented of, when life has moved on as it should and a lot of other wonderfully good things have happened since then, it is not right to go back and open up some ancient wound that the Son of God Himself died trying to heal.

Let people repent. Let people grow. Believe that people can change and improve. Is that faith? Yes! Is that hope? Yes! Is it charity? Yes! Above all, it is charity, the pure love of Christ. If something is buried in the past, leave it buried. Don’t keep going back with your little sand pail and beach shovel to dig it up, wave it around, and then throw it at someone, saying, “Hey! Do you remember this?” Splat!

And soon enough everyone comes out of that exchange dirty and muddy and unhappy and hurt, when what God, our Father in Heaven, pleads for is cleanliness and kindness and happiness and healing.

Such dwelling on past lives, including past mistakes, is just not right! It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. I call out, “Remember Lot’s wife.” Faith is for the future. Faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us and that Christ truly is the “high priest of good things to come.”