A Love So Great…
Hey friends! This week was blessed. Those miracles were a sign of God's love for me, for missionaries, for the people here in Vista Verde, everyone but, there is no greater sign of love than the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The spiritual thought this week might just change the way you think about the Savior's love for you. We will get there though, first we have to get to the many miracles of this week. So many that I don't think I even got half of them in here but I tried.
A Blessed Sunday
What a day. We woke up and got ready for the most important part of the day; Church! We got to go partake of the sacrament and renew our promise to keep the commandments and remember Him in everything and we got to share this very special moment with four of our friends; one that will be baptized next Sunday and another that we were able to mark a date with while at the chapel for the end of the month.
After Church we had a fantastic lunch with the Urbanos. Yes we have the same last name, no they aren't Mexicans; they are Venezuelans! Lunch was so much food but so good. With dessert too. I left a message from Elder Quentin L. Cook's BYU Devotional, Faith in Jesus Christ in the Information Age, it's a great talk, you should give it a listen. And then started our hour and a half trek to our area to, hopefully, find new people. The good news is that we did; four new people ready to hear the restored gospel of Jesus Christ! After that we headed to meet with the person we have on date for next week and had a chance to talk to her whole family again. We were able to teach them all about Restoration through Joseph Smith, it was amazing and what I had been praying for.
On Friday we were told that we would have a mission wide meeting over Zoom on Sunday. All we were told was that it was at 8:30pm. Well it was 7:20pm and we were wrapping up our lesson… one hour and forty-five minutes from home. There was no way we were making it back in time for our meeting until our investigators offered us a ride home making our trek into a fifteen minute drive. Blessing.
And so our meeting started. Presidente and Sister Andrade gave a great devotional teaching us the Restoration. You might think “why did they do that, don't you teach that everyday?” Yes we do teach it everyday but teaching and being taught to is not the same thing. It was really cool and spiritual to hear and think about it all from a perspective different than normal. Then Presidente announced that Elder Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will come to our mission and give a devotional with his wife next week. It’s actually crazy. To get to hear from and learn from a leader of the Church and servant of the Lord that is speaking directly to you is insane. I cannot wait to write more about this for you guys.
Divisão with Poppy
Friday we hit up a divisão with our ZLs and I stayed in my area with Elder Poppleton. Our division was actually pretty good. He is a little crazy but when it gets to the work he's pretty dang good. We had an interesting lunch to say the least but the irmão gave us a ride to our appointment that was an hour and a half away so it was worth it. After that we walked around and talked for a while. I learned a lot from him about being a leader, how to help fellow missionaries, and the work in general. We may or may not have walked in circles while talking because neither of us were paying attention to where we were walking but oh well. We taught this guy that stopped us on the street because he wanted to talk in English which was funny. We also visited the family I have been mentioning recently which was a little crazy but it was good. At the end of the day we got ice cream and pizza which was super good as always and that was that. A nice chill divisão, besides the part that we went down a hill that we forgot we would have to go back up… whoops.
Dots and Jots
Had lunch with a member that got married 10 days after he finished his mission… that lunch was entertaining to say the least.
I told the sisters of my district that if they marked two baptismal dates they could dump a bucket of water on me at district counsel… they proceeded to mark two not even two hours later.
We had a lesson with the family I talked about last week and they made us dinner!
Watching Elders cook their own food is a hard watch.
I've gotten really good at staring at the wall for hours until I eventually fall asleep.
I was walking and out of nowhere a cow peeked through the bushes and looked at me.
Showed up to a lesson actives members house and their mom made us cake while we sat there and chatted
We (us four Elders and the Stake President) sang in Relief Society (the women's organization of the Church) for “Dia das Mulheres” (kinda like mothers day).
Quotes
“I have a problem being humble… but it's hard to be humble when you're the one who's right.” [Elder Bingham, 3/4/2026]
“Elder, você quer que eu questione um apóstolo (Translation: You want me to question an Apostle)?” [Presidente Andrade, 3/8/2026]
God's Hand
Beautiful sunset on Tuesday
I got to talk to Elder Bingham
Got so many free rides this week. Especially grateful for the one on Wednesday when we were walking in the middle of nowhere and some guy just pulled over and asked if we wanted a ride. Sunday as well when we had an hour and a half walk to make in 45 minutes but our investigators offered us a ride.
People answered doors
Rain
Spirit led lessons and testimonies. Specifically in a lesson we had Saturday. We went to teach this old lady and planned on teaching the Restoration however I very quickly realized that she was very closed off and our lesson wasn't helping anything. After a quick breath, a paragraph of words that I never planned on saying came out of my mouth along with a very clear vision of where I needed to take the lesson. The lesson ended up being just what she needed, full of the Spirit, personal, and emotional. It was quite the experience.
Energy on long walks
A Blessed Sunday
Spiritual Thoughts
This week I thought a lot about the love that Christ has for us. The Church released a beautiful video called “Jesus Christ's Greater Love for You” that attempts to capture the love He has. A line made me change the way I think about His sacrifice and love for us. It says, “How he did it is also why he did it; you.” The joy that he felt up until the very end was because of the love he has for us. He died because He loves us but He also was able to endure death because of that love. A love so great that it overpowered an infinite suffering. It's impossible for me to even put my thoughts into words because it's impossible for anything to truly capture that amount of love. Vídeos can't and words definitely can't. The best thing I can invite you to do is sit, watch the video, and reflect. It will change the way you think I promise. He loves you. Love really does break the bounds of death and any other challenge. It is the most powerful thing on this Earth. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Okay I have to go, my CTM instructors are coming to visit for p-day! I am so excited, we are going to do an escape room with them… wish us luck… I can barely do them in English. I love you all so very much and am thankful for all your support! If you have a few extra minutes this week I would love to hear from you!
Até logo,
Elder Urbano
