I AM HERE!
Yes, my P-day is on
Friday, as
you now know. The first week here was pretty tough, and extremely
humbling too. I've always felt comfortable in my knowledge of the
gospel, and of my ability to share it with others, but doing it in a
whole different language never struck me until now. I've prayed for the
gift of tongues every day! What amazes me the most is that I have begun
to see a definite difference in my ability to speak and understand the
language, especially when my companion, Elder Garcia, and I teach an
"investigator" (they have RMs act as investigators for the missionaries
to get a little practice). Our lessons have gone amazingly smooth,
considering how inexperienced both of us are with the language. When we
take the time to pray, asking God to bless us with the Spirit and the
gift of tongues, there is an amazing increase in our comprehension of
what we need to teach, and how we need to go about it in our language.
Grade A District:
Now, about my
Grade A district. Everyone in my district has very
strong ties to the gospel, and we've all learned so much since coming
here. The best quality of my district is their
good-natured humor.
Everyone is so funny! It's been a hard week for us though; one of our
Elders, Elder Clark, made the tough decision to go home, so he could
work some things out in his life. He is a very good man, and as soon as
he got home, he wrote a personal email to everyone in the district,
promising each of us that he would re-apply a year from now, with a
clean slate, ready to serve. I extremely admire his courage to make this
decision. From his experience, among other stories I've heard in the
MTC, it's very easy to see how the adversary is trying to slow the work
effort, but I do not believe for a minute that all the elders here will
not try their best to fight against the threat. God will provide.
FUNNY HABITS of Elders:
The Elders I live with are great!
Elder Anderson, from Ohio, is a
spiritual giant, and a natural leader. All the elders in our district,
including our District Leader,
Elder Holmes, will stop to listen to his
advice. He has a funny passion for
Lego's, because he plans on becoming
an architect. He's learned how to build sound structures in Architecture
School, but I believe he also builds sound inspiration in the other
Elders. He also strangely reminds me of Uncle Jeff. He definitely has
his humor, and he laughs the exact same way.
Elder Benitez, from
Virginia, is a real fighter, and he has a great desire for knowledge. He
must have every important scripture memorized known to the
missionaries! He also had some extremely hard trials to go through early
in life, and he came through them all the better. He knows how to deal
with hard things. Finally, my companion,
Elder Garcia, from
Pennsylvania, has a profound understanding of the gospel and a unique
willingness to serve, because he is the first missionary in his family.
His parents converted to the Church before he was born, and raised him
in righteousness. He often has very helpful insights on questions that
the missionaries have, and he likes to couple that with his hilarious
quick wit. Every joke he cracks is so smooth and quick. He has real
bazofia (swagger). He is also fluent in Spanish, which is really helping
him pick up Portuguese.
Conference was great! It was also the first conference where I was
able to stay awake the whole time. My favorite talk was
, not just cause of his awesome accent, but because his message
really hit home with me. I often revel a bit too much in my own
accomplishments, and his talk about
really helped
answer one of the questions I had, about how I could attain humility in
my mission. I know that if I focus on the work ahead, instead of getting
caught up in how many people I baptize (and once you think about it,
the people I baptize will not make that decision for me, but for
Christ), Heavenly Father will bless me with strength and courage to
continue in His work.
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