It´s been a long couple of days and a quick week since I arrived at the MTC. I was of course sad to be leaving my friends and family for two years, but I can testify that the Lord looks out for those who place their trust in Him and follow His will. On the first flight a flight attendant stopped by me as I was reading the Book of Mormon and talked to me about serving a mission (He´s a member) and just that quick conversation really calmed me down, and let me know that God was watching over me. On the second flight a kind attendant showed me to a better less crammed seat because I´m so tall. Once we arrived at the MTC I struggled a lot with a lot of homesickness and stress over how little time we were given to unpack and adjust, I was so stressed that I couldn´t focus at all during the first class. After dinner however, and being able to kind of decompress by getting to know the other missionaries I arrived with, I felt much better and was able to lose myself in the work. And I can´t stress how important that is, I haven´t felt homesick at all since then (mostly), it's so easy to lose yourself in this work and i feel truly blessed. Every night I look through the pictures I brought with me of my family and friends and I am so grateful for all of you. My district is awesome, my companion is a little less awesome. Elder R and I are complete opposites, and it causes a lot of stress and problems, usually on me. He is very cocky and enjoys being the center of attention, he´s not very focused on any of the lessons and is very stubborn in his views of how a lesson should be taught, but then he still expects me to put it together. He talks a lot, and i mean a lot about his many girls at home, and how he´s dating like 2 or 3 but none of them know. It´s awful. Sorry everyone, I needed to decompress. Part of the reason I know he´s my companion is because the Lord knows each of us and has a plan for us, even if we only know part of it. Elder R is pretty good at trying to talk with some of the native speakers, which has encouraged me to be more extroverted. Oh and by the way the gift of tongues is real, my spanish has improved so much in just this last week. I think the Lord has a sense of humor though because ever since I gave a lesson back home about the gifts of the spirit, I´ve been seeking after those gifts, and one of the ones I´ve been praying for is the gift of patience, and how do you build patience? through patience. It´s very stressful but I guess having to be patient with my companion is helping me build patience so that´s good. Seeking after some of the other gifts of the spirit has been very enlightening. During a personal study time where we were supposed to be studying the doctrine of Christ I was stopped by a large portion of scripture highlighted, which is unusual because I usually don´t mark my scriptures, and it turned out to be the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, as I read it I made a list of attributes and associated blessings. A little further in the chapter we are instructed to ¨Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.¨ Looking back on my list I realized that these attributes and their associated blessings are our Light and that we need to share and Strengthen that Light. Furthering my study, I wanted to focus on one particular verse: ¨Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.¨ What an incredible blessing. Through further study in books such as As a Man Thinketh, and some quotes I´ve heard through my life I put together more notes on being pure in heart. I´ll try to just send a picture of those since I don´t have a ton of time to write. I want everyone to know I´m doing well out here, the food has been pretty good, I haven´t had any problems being too picky about the food, that and I usually can´t eat very much, it´s very filling. My district is awesome and we´re like a family and it´s weird because we´ve only known each other for a week. I hope everything is going well back home! And I hope everyone is safe and happy!
Written on my comp's foot while he was asleep (not by me). My Latino roommates are hilarious, but they also never go to sleep.
Elder Blaylock
Written on my comp's foot while he was asleep (not by me). My Latino roommates are hilarious, but they also never go to sleep.
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