October 1, 2014
HELLO!!!!
Well the weeks are starting to feel like days and the days feel like weeks. I am starting to really, really like it here. I am learning so much. It is pretty much like school!! Every day - all day - in a classroom learning. The days just seem to blend together. I will be writing in my journal and write, "Well I can´t remember if this happened yesterday or today but it was spiritual and a really good experience." So yeah the CCM doesn´t ever change. Same meals. Same people. And the same dang language! But it is really good. :)
This Sunday it happened again. I started snoring. It was soo embarassing. I fall asleep in this weird position that makes me start to snore. All the DL´s said that they could hear me and talked to me telling me that I should try to stay awake but that everybody sleeps. I couldn´t quite tell if they were being serious or not. I hope they were joking around because I was laughing as I walked away. They didn´t act any different so I think they were not offended.
E. Harris is still my favorite. He's told me a lot about his life before his mission. He was telling me about his family life. His home situation was way different than ours. It really, really, humbled me. He is so spiritual and gave up a lot of things in his life in order to be able to be out here.
Fast Sunday almost killed me. I found out that they don´t serve a dinner on Saturday. But of course I didn't find that out until after I had skipped lunch because I had other things that I had to do. Elder Ard and I were so hungry. I honestly thought that I was going to die. But then, when we went into lunch the next day, we were pleasantly surprised when there was a feast of American food. IT WASN'T RICE AND CHICKEN!!! I started crying a little bit.
So we got new kids this week. Elder Monson and Elder Suckeje. I really like Elder Monson. He is really awesome and from Utah. He is super humble and a nice kid. Elder Suckeje I am not so fond of. He pretends like he knows everything about this place when he has only been here for a few days.
Our district has the drama of a large group of high school girls. One is "always right," his way or the highway. So last night right before this great devotional I was explaining to one of the other guys that I really don´t find it to be a compliment when I get called a gangster or a thug. I explained that I HATE it that we are glorifying something that is so ethically and morally wrong. The "I am always right Elder" proceeded to jump in telling me that I don't know what a true thug is because I grew up in Idaho. He told me none of my friends were thugs. He was right about that. I don't have any friends who I would consider thugs. Elder Ard tried to back me up and told him to just shut up. It turned pretty scary at this point...I just stood back and whistled hymns the whole time. I had to go talk to the district leaders and tell them what happened. It was a little nuts.
However, on a better note the devotional following all the baby drama was amazing. We had a Member of the 4th Quorum of the 70 that lives in Lima come talk to us. He talked about David. David hand picked 5 perfect round stones to arm himself with. He told us we need to pick 5 things to arm ourselves with. He doesn´t care what 4 of them are, but he wanted us to understand that the most important thing to arm ourselves with was a strong powerful testimony. He basically told all the North Americans that we are going to stink at teaching for the first 4 months and that we need to be able to rely on our testimonies to convert people. I realized how true that was. That was literally the first thing they taught us here - how to bear testimony. It is crucial that we learn that when a investigator stops progressing we need to bear our testimony and let the spirit do the rest of the talking. He also said something along the lines of, "one more effort, and a failure can turn into a success." I have felt like I have failed a lot at the CCM lately and so that really made me happy. One more day, one more effort, and it will all be worth it. I will wake up one day and know Spanish. All of those fake investigators whose lessons were total failures will be all worth it!!
On Saturday Hermano Ruiz came into class and told us his last day would be on Tuesday (yesterday). I just got really sad in my heart. I honestly love that man. He knows so little English and we know so little Spanish that it was hard to put into words what I felt for him. But I am really happy for him. He is graduating from the University down here and will be an engineer. We aren´t allowed to take pictures unless it's a P-day and president wouldn´t make an exception. However, we told him we would pay for his bus if he would come to the temple today with us. We did. And he did. He was able to come and go through a session with us. I love him so much. We got a picture with him right outside the temple - is there a better place. NOPE!! So take that President!!!!!!
I am doing good, I am all healthy for the most part, only got sick for 3 days so I am feeling rather accomplished!!
Much Love,
Elder George
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