Hola everyone!
This week has been great just like every other week.
First off, I don't know why but I swear everything is funnier in
Spanish. And they have verbs for EVERYTHING. The funniest one I think
is the verb divertidar means literally "to fun". I have no idea how to
exactly do fun but yeah!! I laughed at that like all week. And there's
this funny finger nod thing that our maestro does whenever we ask a
question and the answer is yes. Apparently it's a Latino thing but I
swear it's the funniest thing ever!
Last Tuesday one of the elders in our district has done some family
history and found some names of his ancestors that needed to be
baptized. He asked me and hermana Budd to be baptized and confirmed
for them and I was seriously so honored! It was a really great
experience for both us and him to be able to further his family's work
and to help them receive the gospel even after they were already dead.
Temple work is seriously amazing. After that we came home and did some
laundry, played volleyball, and sang in the choir for the devotional!
Wednesday we had another lesson with our awesome investigator Brian! I
looovvveeee meeting with him because I can tell he really soaks up
everything we're teaching him. We were really struggling with figuring
out what he needed to hear that day so we kinda just half decided on
teaching him about the commandments that God has for us and obedience.
We didn't really know what we were going to say other than that or
what commandments we were going to teach him. So we got in there and
ended up talking about repentance which we didn't plan on, but we were
talking about how when we repent it's honestly not a bad thing at all.
Repentance helps bring us closer to Christ and helps us realize what
we need to work on and how exactly we can apply the atonement in our
lives to better ourselves. So he asked how exactly one goes about
repenting and in my broken ish Spanish i tried to explain that when we
repent we have to truly feel sorry and wish to improve ourselves. We
have to realize that we are not perfect and that some things we have
done are wrong and have to be fixed. We pray to our Heavenly Father
asking for forgiveness and after that we have to try our very hardest
to not do it again! I'm not exactly sure how it came out to Brian. But
after I said that he was like okay I have to be honest with y'all. So
he proceeded to tell us about his addiction to coffee and how he knows
that the things we have been teaching him are true. He is always
talking with his Mormon friends and his sister and he knows that if he
is drinking coffee he cannot be baptized because it doesn't follow the
word of wisdom. So we were right earlier about feeling kinda that he
needed to hear about the commandments! So we told,him that he was
absolutely right but with the help of God and the atonement of Jesus
Christ he could do it! It would definitely be hard but the blessings
that he would reap from baptism would be so much greater than he could
ever imagine. Keep in mind that I'm like pretty sure I said all this,
but I don't know how it actually came out sooooo haha. But yeah so he
gave us all these excuses of how he hasn't been able to stop and how
he's tried and just literally cannot stop drinking coffee. And I was
honestly just so frustrated and mad that he that he couldn't stop!
Nothing is impossible with help from God. So we finally just left him
with our testimonies of that and I shared Ether 12:27 about weaknesses
and how God gives us them so that we can overcome them and become
stronger.
Thursday was the first day of December and I can't believe how fast
time has passed! We taught someone over skype that lived in Puebla,
Mexico. This man was a member and he was pretty chill. We taught him
about how Christ was the ultimate example and how by serving others we
help bring a little joy into their life and we come closer to God. It
was great! We got to meet his cute little 6 year old daughter that
came home from school when we were talking to him. I could understand
her soooo much better because she spoke a little more slowly and her
vocabulary was a little simpler haha. But yeah it was cool! And the
whole time we were skylight we could only see his forehead so we
didn't actually know if he was watching us or not. Whoops. It was good
though!
Friday was our last lesson with Brian ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ I've seriously loved
teaching him so much. He was always so understanding with our bad
Spanish and always listened to what we were teaching. Budd and I
decided that what Brian needed was motivation to stop drinking coffee
for this lesson. We have already asked him if he would be baptized
before and he said yes but we didn't set a date for him to go through
with it yet. We decided that we were going to ask him to be baptized
on December 24th Christmas Eve! We got in there and taught him
specifically about the word of wisdom and how it is modern day
revelation given to Joseph smith about how to protect our bodies and
what kinds of substances are good and bad for us. We told him the
blessings and told him that if he was obedient he could have those
forever! So cool. Then we asked him if he would be baptized and he
said that it was really soon and didn't know if he could do it. I
swear I have never cared so much in one moment than I have in my
entire life. I poured out my whole heart and soul to Brian and I just
wanted him to understand that nothing is impossible with God!!
Nothing! He just had to rake it one day at a time and pray for help!
He said that he would try his hardest to be ready by that day. A lot
of times these TRC investigators that we teach are fake and are
already members but I honestly didn't even care at that point, I'm so
glad that we have gotten to teach him over the past few weeks. I've
learned so much from him during those lessons and I wouldn't trade it
for anything.
Saturday was cool. We just had regular normal classes and stuff. We
said goodbye to the departing districts and hung out with them before
they all left on Monday/today. That night all of the hermanas in our
zone we're chilling in the living room telling embarrassing stories
and we're talking about their lives back at home and stuff and it was
great to get to know all of them!
Sunday there were like a million devotionals and meetings and stuff.
The only things I can remember that stuck out to me were in the first
devotional the MTC president talked about how important it was for us
to always testify of Christ and that he is the savior of the world. He
said that any meeting or lesson without it is one that's wasted. Since
we wear his name over our hearts every day we should be sharing
messages about him. Then that night we watched the annual Christmas
devotional and watched all of the general authorities speak. Honestly
the only thing I can remember from that whole thing was Henry B
Eyerings testimony at the end. He bore a special witness of Jesus
Christ and testified that he is the son of God and that because of his
birth, the world has never ever been the same again. So cool. the
Christmas season is great.
Monday was chill. Just mostly did Spanish and had our classes like
normal! Our teacher hermano hicks is awesome. At the end of our class
with him today he told us that we could just ask him questions about
the mission and like what to expect and stuff. All week I've been
super worried and kinda frustrated with learning Spanish and kinda
hoping that I would eventually become fluent because at this point it
doesn't really feel like it. And plus our whole district is staying in
the US and won't be completely immersed in the language. So someone
asked about how he thought it was going to work for us learning
Spanish and all. He told us that his mission president promised him
when he got out that if he read the Book of Mormon in Spanish and only
in Spanish they he would learn the language. He said that it took him
2 months to read it and at the end of the 2 months he knew Spanish. He
told us that if we did the same thing it would work for us too. So I'm
going to do that and I'm hoping and praying that I can do it!
Hope y'all have a great week!
Con amor,
Hermana Anderson
