Dear Family and Friends,
Well, this is my last email home. It´s actually a lot harder to believe than I thought it would be. A big part of me is in denial and just feels like I will be here in this same cyber writing you another email next week, just like always--crappy keyboards, raggaeton, and the sound of gunshots (from teenagers playing first-person shooter games), blasting in the background.
Ending my mission is harder than I anticipated. It has only been 5 weeks since I got here to Reconquista, but it is possibly the area I have loved the most. I love it here. Which is interesting since it is not a favorite of most missionaries. Reconquista has a history of being a little dysfunctional and difficult for missionary work. There are lots of tragedies and scandals that mark the local church history here. This used to be a thriving district with many strong branches and now it is down to 3 struggling branches with only a handful of faithful families. But from the moment I stepped off our bus in the bus terminal I just felt something special for this place... And these 5 weeks have been filled with so many dear and sacred experiences.
It is amazing how things come full circle. I started my mission in Goya, which is another small city just a few hours down the Parana river from here. People often travel between Goya and Reconquista and they have a lot in common and are considered sister cities.
Yesterday before church we headed out early, just like always, to help get investigators and inactive members to sacrament meeting. Every house we passed by, there was some sort of problem or excuse (they were sick, they overslept, they were expecting company, etc).
We even spent 10 minutes clapping and knocking and calling and trying to wake up the kids in one inactive family who had promised they would come to church with us--but to no avail. Feeling pretty discouraged (especially considering that this was my last Sunday in the mission) we started walking quickly towards the chapel, afraid we´d be late. When we were just a few blocks away we saw Gino (one of the boys we had been trying to wake up) riding his bike with Rodrigo (one of our investigators) sitting on the handlebars. We were so happy!
Then, sitting in the chapel, sweaty and tired and worn out from a morning of work--we watched as one by one, several other members and investigators arrived all by themselves. One woman, a new investigator, had come with some neighbors to our branch activity this week on Friday and decided, all by herself, that she wanted to come to church. We haven´t even taught her a single lesson yet, but she stayed all 3 hours and loved it and we are meeting with her this Tuesday.
In sacrament meeting, I was asked to give my testimony and I was tearing up before I even got up to the pulpit. And then when i got up there and looked out at all these people I love so much, I started crying for real (we had the best attendance both in terms of investigators and in members that we´ve had my whole time here...which I consider a tender mercy and miracle for my last Sunday in the mission)... but anyways I managed to pull myself together. And I shared a few words, and a scripture that seemed particularly perfect in light of that morning´s experience and many of my other experiences in my mission. It is 2 Nephi 25:23 -- "For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do."
I believe in grace. I know that it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that we are saved (after all that we can do). Often "all that I can do" is so very little. But I know that God can take my weak and flawed strivings and with His grace it is somehow, incredibly, enough, and that He can even make miracles happen. Let me tell you, it is a VERY humbling experience being at the end of my mission. I still go to district meetings and conferences and hear the same things I have been hearing since I started my mission about how to be more obedient and how to teach and find and make commitments, etc, and I realize that I still need to improve and change so many things and that I literally have no time left. I feel humbled, but I do not feel any great regrets. I feel like I have given my best, and I have a whole lifetime to continue to learn and grow and apply the things I have learned here in Argentina about serving and helping in God´s kingdom in whatever small way I can. I know there is similar work to do at home and I am ready and excited to do it.
I am sad to leave, but please believe me when I say that I am also beyond excited to see all of you back home. I love you all so much and have missed you my whole mission, so it will be a wonderful reunion. I think in many ways I am the same Brooke I was when I left, and in many other ways, many of which I have yet to discover, I have grown and changed. You will have to see what you think when I get back.
Well, until Saturday,
Hermana Parker
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