2013, September 10, Doing great and learning a lot

Hey guys, how is everything? They had an earthquake here! It was pretty awesome, everything started swaying and after a while I realized I wasn’t going to faint, but it was an earthquake.  Nothing was damaged, but we had to evacuate the CCM.

The CCM routine is getting to be a little continuous, the days blur together and I don’t really know what day of the week it is unless it is Pday or Sunday.

A member of the 70 is coming to speak with us today. I don’t know his name but I will let you know later.  My Spanish is coming along slowly, but speaking to the natives is what is helping me the most. We are teaching them various lessons one to one everyday, and sometimes I get a native that speaks fast, and they say they are speaking Spanish, but it does not sound like it at all! It will get better with time I guess... I blessed the sacrament for the first time in Spanish this past Sunday, and I constantly say prayers at meetings in front of the whole CCM because my roommates are the zone leaders. 

It is funny to see what power does to a person though... when one get power, some use it to better and help the people around them.  There was a zone leader that just left last week, Elder Barlow, and I really looked up to that guy because he was in a position of power, but he was humble enough to put others before him, and push the work.  Every 2 weeks or so the Latinos get new district leaders, and we get new zone leaders, and some rise to the challenge, but others rise to the challenge of expending their power negatively.  Others don’t rise at all but complain and shirk their duties.  It has been a great learning experience for me being here in the CCM.  I get to learn how to support other leaders, and learn from the mistakes of the leaders in front of me.  Analyzing all the missionaries here, I can see and take attributes and work ethic patterns that I like from them and apply them to my life.  I guess the Lord wants everyone here to learn how to do something, and for some it might be to lead, and others to learn certain things to better their missionary work. 

I bought a shoulder bag here, completely waterproof, textile covered and holds all my books.  I also got a really nice set of leather scripture covers here that is personalized for me, and I will send a picture.  It has captain Moroni holding the title of liberty on the front, and the Hawaii Laie temple on the back with my name and mission on the front.  Really nice! 

I got my second baptism commitment from another fake investigator, but we get to teach random people off the street once a week.  Those are really fun to do because we get to see how it really is like contacting people on the street. 

The Wal-Mart trip was good, really refreshing to get out of the CCM.  We went to an old church and had deportes(sports) for a couple hours, then we went to Wal-Mart.  I bought some sticky tabs for the Spanish scriptures so I know where to turn to for  each lesson, 2  tide-to-go pens that I use whenever there is a fresh stain from food or something, and that’s it. 

After that we went to a mall and ate lunch.  The boys in the district ate so much! Everything is so cheap here, I only spent about 10 US dollars and I had a whopper with fries, 2 mcdoubles, and a frosty, baconator, and fries from Wendy’s.  Hey don’t judge me! They don’t feed us lots here in the CCM! I lost about 10 pounds and I am trimming down.  I went down 2 notches on my belt.  They have weights here to work out and such and I am working my legs.

I am glad that I am here. It was a shock at first having to do everything myself such as laundry and keeping track of my stuff, but I am doing really great here.  The laundry room equipment sucks here, but it gets the job done.  The dryers don’t work good, so I have to air dry my clothes in my room. I heard that we pay an endowed temple member to do our laundry in the field because it saves time, and gives them a source of income.  I wash my neck till it is raw because I don’t want dirty necks on my white shirts, but sometimes it shows up so I dunno how to cure that.  Some of the guys here have bleach and use it on the neck before throwing it in the wash, but I try to scrub it out because it isn’t really that bad. I am learning how to budget here.  I haven’t spent much of my American money and I still have about 130 of the 200 you sent me with.  I can’t wait for the market, everyone has some cool stuff from there.

The gospel blesses all those who come unto it and hear it! I love teaching the gospel, even though sometimes I don’t know what they or I am saying.  There is a reason I am here, I don’t know it yet, but there is a reason.  To be honest and I don’t think that this is a bad thing, but my days here are so packed and we do something from the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep, so I don’t really have time to worry about anything else. I like it that way because time flies and I really enjoy what I do.  It is inspiring because when they say to lose yourself in the work, it really is worth it. Almost all the Hispanic missionaries, and teachers here are converts and it is so inspiring when they share their story about how a gringo like me come into their home and even though they don’t speak good English, through the spirit they were able to convert lives.  The Holy Ghost is my best friend, and I would not know what I would do without it.