Oct.16

"October 16, 2008

Este semana pasado fue muy bien. It started with a big day of service on last thursday. We sweat a whole lot and all enjoyed it. Then Friday and saturday rolled around. So far friday and saturday are my least favorite days. In los estados unidos i would have something to do. It's the weekend lets do something... but in the CCM friday and saturday are just like every other day. Sundays are great however. We get nap time which feels like one of the most divine blessings we have =) and time to write letters... letters not emails.
But back into the mission. Lately we have been focusing on using scriptures effectively. Introducing a scripture and then having them read it then helping them understand it and apply it. So earlier when i Told josh to study the scriptures thats a more focused study plan for you. START NOW! learn how to do all of that. It will make your MTC experience better if you are learning a language, not to mention the amount knowledge you have before you go into the MTC.
On sunday we also got to watch Jeffrey R Holland in his Devotional at the MTC in 2000. It is magnificent. Nothing has ever given me such a strong testimony of the power a mission can have as his talk did. He speaks with power directness and Authority. What a wonderful Man. I stress the Greatness of that in hopes that you will be able to find it to watch and maybe show the young men if you feel so inspired.
one monday we went to the university again. My spanish is coming along nicely but i can't understand hardley a thing they say back. I try to translate it and then end up a few sentances behind them and then just say no entiendo (i don't understand). We had a goal of 6 Refferals and this week we realized we're talking way to much and need to bring our goal up to 10. we talked with another lady for 20 minutes. She was catholic and loved when we read out of the book of mormon becuase she knew they were inspired words. She just didn't understand why we needed another book. I recited the first vision to her in spanish (from memory) and she said Amen amen amen the whole way through but she never quiet understood. or maybe there was something i didn't understand. Probably the latter. then i realized we had taken way to much time so apologized and said we ahd to go. We said goodbye and then as we were walking up we saw a guy that said he already had a book of mormon and said that his family didn't want any of it in their house so he asked where he could get more answers so i gave him a pass along card and showed him the web site. THEN it started to Rain like a mad man. POURING... It only rained for 5 minutes and by the time it stopped we were soak to our skivveys. Completely wet. Swimming in my shoes. Then liek i said it stopped in 5 minutes. We started to walk back to the CCM and we were standing on the street corner. Cars are crazy here so we were just waiting to cross and a big bus with people hanging off every side comes driving by. Just like in a movie me and my companion Got our whole lower halfs soaked. The bus hit i big puddle and just drenched our legs. THEN we kept walking up this little hill and a little love bug was stopped. Just cranking his engine. Just would not let off the ignition. So we walked and i wanted to help and other missionaries were saying no no come on we have to go. and I would just let him sit there becuase there was no way any other drivers were going to stop. If you could see it you would know exactly why. So i ran up and asked if he needed help, he shook his head yes. So i got on the side and pushed pushed pushed. Since it was on a hill it rolled back a few feet and then some other elders started to help and we got it up the hill. It was sputting all the way up the hill then he finally got it in gear and started to go. Now we were soaking wet and hands black from all the dirt on his car. we walked the rest of the way back and then later that night my first case of Churria hit. =) only lasted for an evening thank heavens but boy was it unpleasant. We learned this neat new word becuase someone had heard it and didn't know what it was so they asked their teacher and it spread like wild fire.
Then we had a wonderful Meeting on tuesday with the Caribe area president he shook every missionaries hand and walked around as he talked wth us. It was wonderful. FYI there are about 50 missionaries here. all the guy are at the north end of the 4th floor the middle section is all classrooms and the south end is the 4 girls rooms. Next week we say goodbye to all the Haitian elders and then we have 30 Latino elders coming in. I am very excited. We will be using spanish much more and hopefully get much better at it.
on tuesday we got to go to the store the Tienda. I wanted to get some regular food that i'm a little more used to and so i did i got two cans of pringles. and sadly they are already gone. We only had an hour and so it was hard to decide what i wanted to get. i got a pretty Cool Shirt. Pretty redneck but pretty cool.
I Love being here i love being able to experience a completely different culture and completely different language. It is by no means easy work. and i mean it in all seriousness just being in the MTC has probably been one of the hardest things i have ever done in my life. To sit and study For hour after hour every day of the week is very draining physically emotionally and mentally.I love being a missionary. It's hard but it's worth it!"