La Familia Salas

Now I know what the mission is like.
After about a year and four months of being in the mission, Ive finally figured out what my purpose is as a missionary. The amazing talks in conference were only a reinforcement for what I have discovered. It is something really amazing and something that I will never forget for the entirety of my life.
To preface this email, I want to take a bit from the book Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. A lot of times nowadays people are looking to learn as much as they can as fast as they can. In the channels of the brain, instead of deepening the channels of the brain, we are turning them into floodplains and causing an overflow of information. What is called for in a situation like this is some channel deepening. Not so much trying to dig as many shallow channels as possible, but fortifying the old ones that we have. That is really what missionary work has been like. Its not that I have learned so many new things that I have never known about the gospel or that I haven't heard the stories of the missionaries in the field, but the things that I have already learned have been fortified and strengthened in many ways that I had not even imagined. I am so grateful for those experiences that have been ingrained in the channels of my mind and my testimony. This is one of those experiences.
Maria Salas is a hard working mother of 40 years who has been working late nights bagging groceries to help out pay the bills. Her husband had fallen into a depression of alcohol and cigarettes to help ease the pain of the child that he had with another woman before his present marriage and had accidentally smothered it during the night and killed it. He usually came back home late in a drunken stupor. He works as a chauffeur in a restaurant very far away from their house (this is a google map of their apartment block)
About six months ago, her daughter, Rosemary, became very sick and depressed. She didn't want to eat. She didn't want to get up from her bed. She thought about suicide for a long long time. What was the point anyway? Her mother felt bad for her, but had to keep working to support them. Then, suddenly, a miracle happened. Maria fell. She broke her hip and was given a medical leave for the amount of time needed for her recuperation. Fall after fall, maria began to think in a different light. They were barely hanging on, and she and her daughter were both very sick and shattered (3 Nephi 9: 13). They didn't know what to do and had no where to go. finally, Maria said a prayer to her God that he would show them what they needed to do. She was desperate and tearfully sought the healing power that she heard was within the infinite mercy of Christ. About two weeks later, two 19 year old boys in white shirts and ties came to her doorstep. I was one of those boys.
The teaching went amazingly. They accepted baptismal dates immediately and knew almost intuitively about the importance of baptism. Eventually, we found out the issues and worked very hard to resolve them. However, I knew that nothing goes perfect in the missionary work. It didn't.
Saturday night we received a call from a neighbor of the family, who incidentally is a member of the church. She told us that Rosemary went in to get some tests done. The doctors told her that she had cancer.
Many times, we don't know why things happen the way that they do, or why we are in the places where we are when they happen. I feel so privileged to have gotten to know that family and to be able to teach the plan of salvation, knowing that death is not the end of everything, but simply a step into a new beginning. I am so grateful for the hope and love the gospel brings into the lives of the people who understand and hold on to it. As far as the condition of rosemary, we don't know much more. Only that the doctors need to do more tests. I hope everything comes out okay. It was in that moment when I found out that she had cancer that I realized that I loved that family with a love that can only be comparable to the love of a mother or father to their children. I love that family and hope that they can grab onto the iron rod and never let go.
I haven't really learned anything new on the mission, but I´ve discovered the true importance of the things I´ve always known.
Thanks for everything guys, les amo!
Con Amor,
Elder Westover