Week 2 in the mission field is
in the books! Such a great week for my progress and for the work. Still
super hard, but the progress I am making with the language, with my
teaching, and with the lifestyle has been making it all worth it.
There´s a quote that I heard in the CCM that I think describes this
exactly. It said:
¨A mission is hard, but ceases to be hard when we admit that it´s hard, because the fact that it´s hard doesn´t matter anymore.¨
It´s
kind of a confusing quote but basically explains that when we know and
recognize that its hard is when it ceases to be hard because we are
doing it for other more important reasons. I think that´s true for
everything. In work, school, relationships, and everything else we
shouldn´t avoid the fact that its hard but actually embrace it and see
how we can learn and grow from it. That´s my little thought haha now
lets talk about the week.
We are continuing to
teach the triplets and they are doing good. I love seeing their
progression in their want to go to church and learn more about the
gospel. The tough thing is that their parents are not members and have
no interest in joining the church. And their aunt is an inactive member
and doesn´t show a ton of interest in attending church, leaving three 11
year old girls with no reliable way to get to church every Sunday.
Super bummer. We have been working with getting them a reliable support
system but we haven´t been making progress. One of the requirements for
baptism is that they have to have support in their attending church and
remaining faithful so if we can´t get that support from her aunt or
parents we may need to push back their baptisms which would crush us. We
are definitely going to be relying heavily on the Lord to give us an
answer to this problem. We also have a couple other families who are
seeming to progress well and I am anxious to see their growth.
We
got a call the other day from Salt Lake City about a woman who called
the church´s number from seeing it on the TV and they sent us her
information. We talked to her and set up an appointment to come and talk
to her. She lives pretty far away in a really small town called
Guadalupe. We took a taxi there and got off in the little town and
walked to her house, and had a few different people come up and talk to
us about who we were and why we were dressed that way. I started to
realize that I think in this little town they rarely or never have had
the missionaries. It helped make me realize how important it is to
progress this work and teach everyone we can about the church. There are
so many places all over the world who have never heard the message of the
restored gospel and it is our job to bring that to them. I am so
grateful to have the gospel in my life and want to never take it for
granted.
Overall it has been a great week.
I have been learning a ton about the language. Every day my goal is to
write 10-15 words or phrases I hear throughout the day on a notecard and
memorize them and their meanings. It has been a huge blessing for me
and after just a couple weeks I have soooo many words that I am working
on learning. This has made me especially attentive to the things
people say and common phrases. It has been a good exercise for me but
makes me mentally exhausted haha. Thats going to be my life for the next
few months. I am so grateful for my opportunity to be here and I know I
am going to be so blessed after the work and time that I have been
putting in.
Love you all,
Elder Anderson
Oh
btw we climbed up to the Christ statue the other day because we are
half way up there for a reference and decided why not. It was
beautiful.
Pics!!
1. Iguana in a tree
2. Christ statue
3. Me with the Christ statue
4. View of Tihuatlan from the Christ statue
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