Week #2 has also been pretty
crazy.
My
companion had to be sent home due to some medical reasons and that was really
sad. He came back today to officially say goodbye and everything since he
wasn't able to do so the last time we saw him. My district and I bought him a
shirt and we all signed it. My new companion is awesome. He knows the language
really well because he used to live in Peru. We have had some amazing lessons
together. The language is coming slowly but surely. The gift of tongues is
real... In class I feel like I know only a tiny bit of Spanish, which is true.
But when we teach, I am able to speak my thoughts in a way that they can still
understand what I am saying. We actually made one of our investigators cry. I
was so proud of myself. We had another "investigator" who apparently
was the hardest and toughest investigator. Other missionaries said that he
likes to criticize your Spanish and is really hard on you. I was pretty worried
about that. in the middle of the lesson he interrupted and said "where did
you two learn spanish?" And I just said "well I took two years of it
in school" and my companion told him how he used to live in Peru. Then the
investigator said "oh, because you speak so well. 'Muy muy bueno'" I
was so relived. But I don't want anyone to think that I haven't said anything
embarrassing so I will tell you my embarrassing story. We were teaching a woman
named Sophia. She is Catholic and she asked about the trinity. Catholics
believe that Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are all one being
that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. So I was telling her that we
believe that they are all three different beings with one purpose and instead
of calling it the trinity, we call it the Godhead. Well, when I said that, the
look on her face told me that I said something terribly wrong. She looked at me
and said "so... God has 3 heads...?" apparently there isn't a word
for "God head" in spanish... We had to spend the rest of the lesson
correcting that mistake and re-explaining all of that. I get teased about
it every day now. Our district has emailed their families telling them that
story as well. It was pretty funny. Our zone was having one of those
discussions one night where you tell random things about yourself that nobody
knows. So i mentioned that I couldn't feel or taste on half of my tongue and
that I consider it an advantage to be able to eat gross foods. They wanted to
test it out so they found some hot sauce.... the put a drop on the numb spot on
my tongue and it worked. I didn't feel or taste thing. But then another
missionary, Elder Eldridge (who is one of my best friends in the mission, he is
crazy) grabbed the bottle from me and started drinking the hot sauce. Everybody
looked at him like "what the heck?" but then they all looked at me
and told me to one-up him. It turned into a hot sauce drinking competition... I
don't think I have quite recovered from it.
My mission has
been very hard but it has also been so much fun and I have grown so much. I
have come to love the scriptures so much and I feel so much peace when I read
them. I was reading in Ether about the brother of Jared, when he saw God's
finger touch the stones. Ether 3:6 "And it came to pass that when the
brother of Jared had said these words, the Lord stretched forth his hand and touched
the stones one by one with his finger. And the veil was taken from off the eyes
of the brother of Jared." If you read closely, it doesn't say that
he saw God's finger right away. After God had touched a few of the stones is
when the brother of Jared saw his finger. We can relate that to our faith. When
faced with a trial of any sort, we must decide what to do with faith and bring
it before the lord, just like the brother of Jared did. He needed light in the
boat things and asked God to bring light into those stones.Once God had touched
a few of the stones the brother of Jared's faith increased once he saw that it
was actually working. Once he started to have enough faith is when he saw God's
finger touch the stones. The same goes for us. Faith is something that we need
to practice. We can't expect to have some huge experience right away. But
Heavenly Father will reveal to us little by little things that will increase
our faith. Each time he does so, our faith grows and we are able to see the
Lord's hand in our life more and more. Faith is an action, and must be
exercised if we want to have more of it. That is my spiritual wisdom for the
day. I miss you all and hope that you have a great week. Adios!
Elder May
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| This is my companion who had to go home. He came back to say goodbye |
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| This is my new companion |
