6 weeks

On to week six!!

 

That's right, only like three more weeks left and then we are outta here! It is a little bittersweet because I really do learn a lot here and my district is so sweet, but I am more than excited to be nearing that departure date.

 

This last week has been once again very great. Last Friday I entered into my second day on my three day English fast, I was only speaking Spanish for three days. So once it hit 10:00 A.M. on Saturday, I was cleared to speak English, which felt kind of weird starting up again. In those three days I was really amazed to see how fluid my Spanish was becoming, fluid - not fluent. But it really did improve a ton. Really committing to something and following through and just praying and fighting to learn more and speak better did wonders for the language.

 

Speaking of Saturday, we had a great time teaching two lessons in the TRC, which is where members come in and we teach them lessons. We taught about Revelation through the Book of Mormon. They were awesome lessons and our first appointment, Santiago, really did teach us a lot more than we did him. I really can't remember more than that, but Saturday was good.

 

On Sunday we had a great devotional from an administrator in the MTC, but the really great part was when he had four recent converts come up, they had only been members for about a year and now they are on missions, it is crazy to think about. Their testimonies were amazing and it really helped me and gave me a boost. After that we watched a devotional that Elder Bednar gave on Christmas in the MTC about the Character of Christ. It was such a great talk. So powerful, he really didn't hold back on anything. He talked about how we need to seek to be like Christ and not only have a testimony, but be converted. There was a lot more obviously, but it was awesome.

 

On Monday we kinda had an off day, don't know how, we just weren't all really focused, which is not good. Our teacher got engaged over that weekend at Disneyland, so we took a pretty huge chunk talking about that, and then we had to see the pictures of course. And then of course the next day was Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day as a missionary is very interesting, especially here in the MTC, probably only here in the MTC to be honest. There are just floods and floods of packages. Tuesday was the day when you found out which missionaries had girls or not. And my favorite girl sent me an amazing package, its mom. It was awesome. And Aunt Lori, so I got to wear a sweet, probably not missionary appropiate tie, but who wouldn't wear a tie with tons of hearts on it. Our message is about love, right?

 

We taught Ivelisse again on Tuesday. She is pretty hardcore Catholic, so our teaching of the Great Apostasy was not so well received, but we were able to salvage it a little bit. It wasn't so bad. Also, we taught James last night, it was a great lesson, couldn't have done it without the Spirit.

 

And sorry if it is confusing when i say investigators. Here is how it works. Our two teachers, Litzenburger and Pacheco have their roles as Mauricio and James respectively. Hermano Pacheco was also Tomas in the beginning. And then on Saturdays we teach in the TRC, which are lessons to members. And then twice a week we teach Ivelisse, who (we arent told this, but I found out since I clean that floor for service, not like it wasn't hard to find out anyway) is a paid actor by the MTC to act as an investigator and everything, And then we are starting a new thing where we all get to make up our own person and have other missionaries teach us, which is awesome because it is kind of payback in a sense, but more so it is way cool because we get to know what it is like to be an investigator, only slightly. My role is going to be a mix of me and dad, so it should be interesting. Everyone we teach here is a member, but the Spirit still testifies of the truths we teach and many of the questions and roles are all real people.

 

That is something that is so interesting to see here, how the Spirit doesn't care if the person being taught is a member, He still testifies of the truth, wherever it is taught. I know it will be so much different in the field, I am not naive. But so far we have had some really tough experiences with our investigators and we still pray for them and we still feel the Spirit with us when we teach. It is awesome.

 

 

This work is true, the Church is as true as the Gospel. I love all of you my family and friends, the Lord is watching over me and I know he is over you as well.

 

Love you all,

Elder St. Martin