Familia y amigos!
It is crazy that it has only been four weeks. It feels like it has been a year here, but at the same time it feels like two days. It is crazy!!
So awesome stories for the week. We started teaching three "investigators," Lugo, Maria y Renato. Lugo y Maria have committed to baptism! Lugo we had an awesome lesson with him about baptism. We had sked him to read 3 Nephi 11 and to pray about the restoration. He read but had not prayed. So we prayed there in the lesson. The Spírit was so crazy strong. We all felt it. It was awesome how the Spirit works even when this is not a real investigator. The Spirit always confirms the truth. At first my companions and I (I am in a trio) were having a harder time preparing lessons because there are three of us and we all have different ideas! We have started to have a general idea of what we want to say, pick out a few favorite scriptures, then pray really really hard. It has made all the difference! This week I have gained such a testimony of the Spirit, and all I do is tear up now a days :) Renato is pretty hard to teach. We have not figured out how to help him yet, but I know it will come.
I have also learned a lot about faith. So our teacher had us teach an "investigator" (someone in the class) and they had a certain problem. Our investigators seven year old son had just been diagnosed with cancer. We had five minutes to prepare to help her. I looked up the scripture in Mosiah that talked about the people of Alma being in bondage, and how the Lord strengthed them. However, this did not answer her question. We all came up wtih "comforting" scriptures, and after a few minutes of teaching, we were all discouraged. Our teacher had us take a break and taught us a very important lessons after asking us a lot of why questions. Why does the Lord have us go through hard times? So that we can learn and grow? There must be something more. It is so that we can learn to have faith in him. So that we can learn to trust him. So that through our faith we can have access to the atonement, which can heal everything. If we have faith, then we will be comforted. We can not be comforted without faith. After that lesson I decided my goal is going to be to work on my faith.
I have had a huge change in perspective since then. I have always thought, "what would I say to the Savior if he was here?" And I realized after making my goal of having more faith, that I talk to the savior every time I pray. Now, every time I pray I imagine the Savior there sitting by me, listening. My prayers have changed a lot. We heard a quote from Bruce R. McConkie when he spoke at conference soon before he died. He said that he knew he was going to die, but when he goes and sees his Savior and kisses his feet, he will not have any more of a surety then than he does now of his Savior. I want faith like that. I have also been re reading the Book of Mormon, and every single story of Nephi involves his faith. I have realized what miracles can truly come if we have faith on the Savior. So I have put it into practice. I do all my language studying and personal studying (which there is never enough time for!) And when we go into a lesson, I pray and say I will say whatever you put into my heart as long as you help me say it. Some glorious way I am always able to say what I need to say, which is truly a miracle.
Another good story. So every Sunday for Sacrament there are six speakers, all of us in our district. The kick is that none of us knows who will be speaking. We simply get a topic and we all prepare a five minute talk in Spanish. Our bishop (I think that is what he is?) announces the first three speakers, then we have a hymn, then he announces the next three speakers. Well my name got announced. Our district leader told us the topic was eternal marriage. Actually, the topic was anything from Chapter 3 of Preach my Gospel. The first person got up and talked about faith, and I was pretty confused. Someone from my district got up and talked, but she mainly talked about keeping commandments, faith, and a little about eternal marriage. Well, my entire five minute talk was about eternal marriage. So I go up there and talkrd about my own personal experiences, how when I was younger I thought it was more important to have a happy marriage than have an eternal unhappy marriage, but now my perspective has completely changes. Apparently all the Elder were super happy because they had a joke going on and bets to see if anyone would talk about eternal marriage, but then I made it all serious. So yep. Thanks district leader for making me the laughing stock;) But it was all good.
We also got to go to the temple today, and good news, I understood about 25% of it!! I was so happy. I was telling my companion this and she was like wow, that is not very impressive but I am happy for you.
Well love you all soo much!!!
Hugs and kisses.
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