Once again, I have no idea where to begin! I'm so sorry I didn't have time to send much more than my mass email last week! I'll try to work faster this time - an hour to email is NOTHING, I've discovered!
This week was muy ecrayzeee!!! First of all, as I suspected, our first investigator (Jesus Benjamin) became our second teacher! His name is Hermano Rasmussen, he's two months home from HIS mission to Mexico, and since our first teaching experience was with HIM, he knows exactly what we need to work on! I love learning with him. I've come so far since he became our teacher!
On Saturday, we observed some Hermanas as they taught their last lesson before they headed to Costa Rica. I was pleasantly surprised when I realized I was actually understanding everything they were saying, and of course I got some awesome tips for teaching our own lessons. However, my mood changed a bit when we suddenly had to teach some of the other elders from our district with these same Hermanas in the room. It was intimidating, the Elders said they didn't believe in God, and we couldn't quite find the right words to say! Not a fantastic day, but definitely an eye-opener, so for that I was grateful. It made me more motivated than ever to expand my motto from "WORK HARDER" to "WORK HARDER, PRAY HARDER, AND LET THE SPIRIT GUIDE." I can't do this alone, guys! I can truly say that I worked hard to prepare myself to come here, I work hard now to prepare my lessons... but there comes a point when you're teaching the lesson when the notes you've written become completely irrelevant. You start thinking, "I don't even know how to answer this question in ENGLISH, clearly!" and you freak out a bit. Sometimes, I freak out and I shut down, or I start repeating myself, or I just start reading straight from my lesson plan. But SOMETIMES, I'm happy to say, I've been able to say a little prayer in my heart right then and there and when I do that the Spirit ALWAYS prompts me to simply bear testimony. Words start to come from my mouth, and the fear melts away. It truly does. I was talking to an Elder who is FROM Mexico yesterday, and he's heading back there to serve his mission in Chihuahua. He's a funny, talkative guy, but I loved when he started to tell my companion and I about his theory, which is in essence, "When in doubt, bear your testimony. People can't question it, they just can't." I couldn't understand him all that well, but I loved that idea, especially for this specific time in my mission. There have been times where we've been so intent on teaching our investigator the lessons that we run out of time and they shoo us out before we bear testimony, I'm embarrassed to say.
On Sunday, I played piano for sacrament. Oh, also on Sunday, my companions and I got called to be the Sister Training Leaders for our Zone! Basically, we work with the Zone Leaders and are in charge of taking care of all the Hermanas. I'm really excited, obviously! We get four more Hermanas tonight, and we're the ones who welcome them in, get them settled, show them around...CRAZY to think that was me TWO weeks ago!!!
Sunday night's devotional was Jenny Oaks Baker, and as Gma Pam would say, she's a "riot." Jejejeje. Also, I've made it a point to try to spread a rumor of a different famous person coming to speak to us every week, and so I got some of my district to think I'd heard David Archuleta was coming. At Tuesday Devotional yesterday I tried to get them to believe Joe Biden was speaking jejejeje and next week we're starting a "Donny Osmond" craze. Help me think of new people, por favor.
On Monday we taught our first lesson to our second investigator, Ivan! He's just another one of our teachers in disguise, Hermano Pemberton (or Pampertown, as we like to say). Honestly, I'm at the point with Spanish now where I actually begin to ramble when I get nervous, just like in English...I did a bit of that the first lesson, but mostly it went great. He already knows a lot, he's willing to learn. Tuesday we taught him our second lesson, and that was even better! I wrote a lesson for himMonday night and gave it to my comps for reference because I thought I wouldn't be able to teach with them on Tuesday since I was scheduled to go to the Mexican Consulate in the morning. Pampertown let us go first, though, and I was able to participate in the second lesson! We were very straight-forward, we went through the Restoration Pamphlet, we had him follow along with us, we presented him with a Book of Mormon and asked him to read some of the introduction with us, and asked if he would read the "crowning event of the BoM" - 3 Nephi 9 - before the next lesson. We actually also invited him to baptism, and he said he would love that, but he doesn't know WHEN he'll be ready! We're going to keep working on it, ask him to come to church (can't believe we didn't do that the first time), teach him the WoW, more about repentance, 10 Commandments, etc. I'm super excited.
So, yes, on Tuesday I went with Hermana Leonard (one of my roommates) on splits to the Mexican Consulate. It was CRAZY because we took the Trax that goes RIGHT by our house! I could almost see it! I got to see JHS, our Walmart, Jenson Farm...it was so crazy to think I was SO close to my family! At 2:34 I was looking over the Jenson field at the exact spot our house is at.
For those of you who didn't know, I'll be leaving for Mexico on September 15th! My Visa's all ready and such!
My Espanol still has a waaaaaays to go, so don't judge...here's my quick testimonio!
Estoy agradecimos por este opportunidad tengo aprendar sobre y ensenar el Evangelio de Jesucristo, cada dia. Creo que La Iglesia de Jesucristo de Los Santos de Los Ultimos Dios es verdad, y yo se que puedo vivir con mi Padre Celestial mediante la Expiacon de mi Hijo, Jesucristo. That's about all I have time for....Love you all so very much, thank you for your sweet emails and letters! Each one is appreciated, even though I don't always have enough time to respond to each individually!
Big keees, leeetle keeees!
Hermana LeSueur
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