Weeks seem to fly by when you look back on them. It's hard to believe that in 2 days it I'll have been here for a month. It sure doesn't seem like it and I hope I will be ready in less than two weeks now when I leave.
So this Saturday we are going proselyting again. I'm both excited and nervous. We are going with our normal companions this time, so I'll probably have to do most of the talking because my comp is still struggling with his Spanish. I know it'll be great though. I've felt a lot different about talking to people since I've been here. I've probably talked more in my District in these 4 weeks than I did my entire high school experience. I also haven't had too hard of a time talking to complete strangers, like at the temple or during proselyting, which before would have made me very uncomfortable and would have scared me to death. What a difference having the Spirit makes with your confidence. 2 Timothy 1:7 "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." and D&C 121: 45 "...then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God."
I have felt the confidence of the Spirit and I know we are helped when we go forward with confidence to declare his word. It's the only way I would be able to do it.
Something funny: My district (Moroni) and the other older district (Mormon) decided to play a prank on the younger kids when they got here. We told a few people about how last time we went proselyting Elder Porter (who is completely made up) got stabbed and had to go home to recover from his wounds. We waited a couple days and let the rumor spread, but most of the people didn't really believe it. So then we got one of the teachers, Hermano Anuarve, in on it. He isn't our teacher but he really likes our district and he comes and talks to us a lot. He loves pranks and also quotes the Office like everytime we see him. But anyway, we got him in on the joke. So later that day the new kids had an initiation meeting, which was in spanish but the english people had on headsets and would listen to Hermano Anuarve translate for them. So the guy that was giving the lesson was explaining why we don't have ipads and stuff like that in our missions, and when Anuarve translated it, he added: "yeah, we can't have ipads and stuff like that in our missions, you don't want to end up like Elder Porter." He said the look on their faces was priceless. He said he saw a bunch of them look at their companions and say stuff like "I told you it was true". Anyway when he told us this story we all thought it was hilarious and laughed forever.
Another funny story happened during one of our IP lessons (Progressive Investigator). We have two teachers, one in the morning and one in the evening. We switch off teaching lessons to them everyday like they are progressing investigators. Our morning teacher is "Beatrice" and our afternoon teacher is "Natalia". So yesterday we had to teach Beatrice. I knew this lesson probably wasn't going to go very well when my companion started it off by saying "Como se dice" instead of "Como esta". Well we got passed that mishap and asked if she had read the chapter we asked her to and all that jazz, then my companion gives the opening prayer. In this prayer, he asks to please bless Natalia, who is our other IP. I had to try really hard not to laugh during the rest of the prayer. And then later on during the lesson we were talking about the Atonement and my companion was trying to say we can overcome our sins, but instead said something like "podemos superar nuestros pescados" which translated is "we can overcome our fish." At that, both me and our teacher couldn't help but to laugh. Considering all this it wasn't too bad of a lesson though.
My comp and I have started doing serious pushups. We've been trying to do at least 50 every day, but somedays we do a lot more. Like yesterday, we did 70. We hope we can crank it up to 100 soon. Maybe I'm just imagining it but just two weeks of doing push ups has made me feel a lot stronger, and my upper body feels bigger. We do a lot of ab workouts too, but I doubt with the way we eat that we'll be getting a six pack anytime soon. I've also remembered how much I love basketball and baseball. Elder Lassen from my district brought to mits and a ball. The mit is for right handers but I put it on my right hand anyway and I'm still able to catch with it. Playing catch is really relaxing and brings back a lot of memories. Most days though we play basketball. We do 3 on 3, first one to 3 points, and the winner stays on. Whenever me and Elder Lassen are on a team, we dominate. We get tired from being on the court for so long.
I don't know if I already told you this but I got a haircut here about two weeks ago now. It's looking pretty fresh. The guy is crazy fast, each haircut lasts about 2 minutes.
We get to go to the temple again today in about 2 hours... in spanish of course. I'm looking forward to it, it's always nice and relaxing. Also I forgot to mention that our district has already done two musical numbers in sacrament meeting. Two sundays ago we were combined with another district and we sang the Sister of Zion and Bring the world his truth melody... in spanish of course. And this last sunday we only had like a one day notice so we just decided to sing a hymn. We sang For the Beauty of the earth in spanish. They both went pretty good.
Still haven't figured out my SD card but I attached two pics that got sent to me by our afternoon teacher. She is studying to be a photographer so she took some pictures of our district for fun and took the group photo of all of us that will be leaving next transfer.
The one in front of the flag is our district, District Moroni. The Elders in my district are awesome and some of the coolest people I've ever met, and also some of the best friends I've ever had. If you don't know, my comp is the second from the left, with the glasses and you can only see his head.
Anyway, hope everything goes well and you have a great week. I'm sure it'll fly by again.
-Elder Shelton
No comments:
Post a Comment