FELIZ DIA DE PREPARACION!
Como estan ustedes? Another p-day is here, it's so crazy. I feel like I say that every time because I probably do but it is so true, it feels like I just had p-day a few days ago. I hit the 5 week mark, it's crazy, I've been here longer than the amount of time I have left, so sweet. Let's talk about this week shall we...This email is gonna be mostly about people I've met, cuz this week was awesome for meeting people.
One of the highlights of the week was meeting this group of 4 missionaries on Saturday. Seriously, one of the greatest moments of my mission already, which is actually saying quite alot. On Saturday, Swasey and I went to a random other building to do TALL and met these 4 guys, let me describe them to you. The main 2 guys that I talked to we're pretty much fluent in Spanish, one especially, cuz he was from Tegucigalpa, Honduras!!! Max, if you eventually read this letter, I didn't hear exactly where he is from, but he did say Tegucigalpa, his name is Noel Castro, if that rings any bells let me know. He was absolutely awesome, and he is coming from there and got called to the London, England mission! What?!? So he's here in the MTC for 9 weeks like I am, but for the opposite reason, so cool. But what's even cooler is his story. He's a convert, used to be catholic, only been a member for like a year and a half. So when he was living in Honduras before he was baptized, these robbers came up to him trying to steal his money and he resisted and they shot him in the back of the shin. He said when he first got shot it didn't hurt that bad, but after like 2 hours it started to hurt really bad. The next day he stepped into his catholic church and was like cursing God, saying like ""How could you let this happen to me?"" and then he said that he met the missionaries the next day at a convenience store by his abuela's house. 2 gringo missionaries that started talking to him, and they offered to start teaching him English first, then they would warm up to gospel lessons, so he said "sure". He said he avoided them when they came to knock on his door haha but eventually met with them, and now he's baptized and serving a mission! But what is even crazier is before he chose to serve a mission, he got encountered by other guys, and got shot 2 more times! one more in the other leg and one in the butt, and the one in his butt is still in there! They said it was too dangerous to try and remove it down in Honduras, so he is stuck with it. And he said he really struggled to walk, being that he was shot twice in the legs, and had to use a walker. And he prayed and asked God that if he would give him the ability to walk without struggle, that he would serve a mission. And now he's out serving, and going to England of all places! Seriously, this is like the coolest story I've heard, and be in mind that he was telling this whole story in Spanish, cuz we asked him to share his conversion story and we wanted practice, so I obviously understood most of it. So amazing.
Also, his companion is from Portugal, fluent in Portuguese obviously, and he's also going English speaking, to Vegas, where Swasey is from! hahaha, it was so crazy. The other 2 guys I mentioned were these 2 massive Tongan guys, also going English speaking. Those guys were giant, but honestly, they were so unbelieveably nice and gentle. We shook their hands and it was so calm and nice. I want huge Tongan friends! And we saw them again a few nights ago, and hes like ''Good night my friends" in this voice that sounded like a booming deep bass drum haha. ahh! so cool!
Ok, next, new advanced Spanish speaking district. I'm in the intermediate class, and a new advanced district came, of all native guys, and they are so nice too, love them all. Swasey and I have been spending part of our language study everyday going in and talking to them, completely in Spanish, just having conversations. In my opinion, it's the best practice we can get, actually having fun and verbalizing your Spanish thoughts. 2 guys in particular, Elder Hernandez (little tank, tiny little round guy, so gentle, so nice) is from El Salvador...awfully close to Panama dont you think...? And another elder named Elder Flores (from Washington D.C. but his parents are also from El Salvador), so their accents are gonna be pretty similar to Panamanian accents. They are just all around awesome guys, and I feel SO much more comfortable talking to them in Spanish, just being myself, and talking about gospel doctrine also, and they like talking to us too, they always so that our comprehension of Spanish is really good. So since they're all advanced, they'll leave in 2 weeks, but I'm so glad they're here and I'm gonna practice with them as much as possible while theyre still here. We even got them to choir with us on Tuesday ;)
Last really cool people I met, I promise, 2 sister missionaries both going to Hungary, speaking Hungarian obviously haha. We sat down next to them at dinner a few days ago, and they were doing a thing called syl (speak your language) where they talk only in the language they're learning, and they were so cool and fun. We as a district were like playing a game of charades with them where they would try to explain something to us in Hungarian, and we would answer back in Spanish, so crazy how different languages are. The only thing I remember is "roze" or something like that means "bad" haha. And what was funnier was one of the girls was from Canada and fluent in French as well as English, and learning Hungarian, 2 crazy extra languages.
Week's been good, feeling better, not as sick anymore. Teaching is going pretty well, Carlos is about to be baptized I think, we''ve been teaching him for almost a month now! Crazy amount of time for the MTC investigators. But it's getting alot easier to express myself in Spanish, trying to say metaphors and different scenarios and blessings from obedience to following Heavenly Father's commandments. You get in the habit of using certain words and verbs and phrases all the time, because they work, such as:"Estamos aqui para ud para ayudarle con qualquier cosa que necesita" Translate it all folks ;)
Devotional this week was a guy from the presidency of the 70, Tad R. Callister, talked all about the Apostasy and the Restoration. Really good talk, he used a lot of quotes throughout time (the apostasy time) of political leaders, evangelical leaders, or other important people that clearly knew that Christ's church that He had established on the Earth had gotten so corrupt and changed all through time. It was really cool to see that all these non-LDS people knew that the way the church was supposed to be maintained had not happened. And he gave 10 proofs of why there was an Apostasy in general, and one that stuck out was "The Bible did not continue" which I say is pretty sound evidence that God's ordained prophets and worthy priesthood holders were no longer alive to continue receiving revelation. Good talk, I seem to remember him talking in conference recently.
Grant got here today but I never got to see him, que triste. But I am gonna try to find him, maybe find out where his class is and poke my head in, or just wait till a meal comes around and go look for him. Our class is right next to the drop off so I kept looking out, but never saw him. Everyone was excited for me having my big brother here, I built it up alot, by talking about it almost everyday haha.
Love you all, thank you for all your letters. On to the home stretch now, I should get my travel plans in like 3 weeks or so, maybe less. Also mom by the way, I don't need a VISA for Panama for some reason, don't know if I mentioned that, but it's like one of the few countries that doesn't require it. I went and talked to the travel office and they said that the 3 of us going to Panama don't need them, so that's pretty sweet, I'll almost definitely leave on my assigned time.
Everyone, my cool scripture of the week is Alma 42:31, read up!
See you next week :)
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