Week 3 (August 3, 2016)

HI EVERYONE!!! How’s everyone doing? I hope  you’re good(:
Ya know I wish I could say that I had an experience that has changed
my life forever this week. But. Not really. Every day is the same.
Lol. We’re learning Spanish little by little. It’s definitely a work
in progress. But it’s fun(:

My friend Elder Sanchez left yesterday for the field and now I’m sad.
He was my favorite. Along with all the American Elders who welcomed us
to the CCM! It’s weird to think I’ve been here for three weeks. It
feels like three days because every week is just one big day. We go to
the temple every single week here in Lima. It’s amazing. It’s all in
Spanish though. Soooooooo it’s a bit interesting(: What’s super cool
though is that the only days that its ever sunny here is on Sunday for
church, and P-day when we go to the temple. It’s sunny right now.
Kinda cool right? Heavenly Father looks out for His missionaries with
a little sunshine now and then!

The mountains here are 2x as big as the one’s you look at every day. I promise.
Everyday during our language study session we talk about all the weird
grammatical things in Spanish. And this past week we’ve been studying
Indirect and Direct object Pronouns. So.. stupid right? No. We’ve been
arguing about it for like a week straight and we just can’t get it.
Spanish is so fun(:

Volley ball. The sport that will  tear friendships apart, or it will
make you hate everything, OR you will absolutely love your life
because it’s different than futbol. That’s what it is to me anyways.
We play volleyball now instead of soccer, mostly because we got sick
of playing it every single day. It’s intense stuff. We have
tournaments of two on two beach volleyball. And let me tell ya, my
calves are really feeling that volleyball burn. I love it.

The rice is clogging me.

Now for a spiritual thought.
On Sunday we talked about faith. All day long! And we learned some
amazing things. (Alma 32:26-43.)  Faith isn’t a noun, it’s not a
passive belief that we hope will someday grow into huge knowledge.
It’s a seed. Like we learn in primary. Faith is a verb. It’s an action
that if executed correctly, Heavenly Father sends us miracles. So how
do we utilize it? Get up. And act on what we feel. Like I talked about
last week, if we’re living righteously we can have the spirit to guide
us. You never really know in the moment that you’re having a spiritual
prompting.

So what am I saying? Just live.
Not only just live, but live the gospel. What an incredible blessing
it is to have the restored gospel here on this earth. Holy cow. I
know, and I promise you that if you live right and you get up and move
and not be idle.  You’re going to see amazing things happen to you.
And you’re gonna be blessed beyond belief. HAVE FAITH for things to
come.

“Don’t you give up, Don’t you quit.
You keep walking, You keep trying.
There IS help and happiness ahead.
It will be alright in the end.
Trust is God, and believe in good things to come.”
-Elder Holland.

I know this gospel is true. I can never deny it. I love and miss you
all dearly. Keep moving forward. God is good(: