September 22, 2016

Hi Family!

This week has been kind of crazy. Lots of the same stuff as I'm now used to life in the CCM. But a lot of growing experiences. 

Before I forget...Some words of wisdom I have learned that I may or may not have shared yet...

A bad experience is still experience.

Apparently a croissant with lettuce, egg and asparagus makes the table for breakfast (gross!). I suggest pulling out the asparagus. The food is great. I love unlimited Nutella and whipped cream because we can eat that with every meal (the only time its free for the rest of my life haha).

Romans 15:24 - the apostle Paul was in Spain.

Faith is the Power

Obedience is the Price

Love is the Motive

Spirit is the Key

Christ is the Reason

To Him, our direction is more important than our speed.

From David O McKay: It is greater to be trusted than to be loved.

The Savior´s atonement covers everything unfair in life. Everything.

When you start getting down on yourself or down in general, turn outward and serve others. I have definitely seen this one work in my life this week with my back. My back hurts when I think to hard about it but when I turn outward and serve others and strengthen them, God strengthens me that my back doesn't hurt nearly as bad (and of course I must do my part and do the exercises).

I definitely have seen the hand of God in my life this week. When we went to the Park I was with Elder Dargon, I kind of shy Elder from Florida. But when he got a prompting he acted. And he knows Spanish really well which is great. He understands better than I do but for some reason I was able to talk more. He would feel prompted to talk to a family and I would think to myself like´- I'm kind of scared to do that but I will open my mouth. And so I did and we were blessed. We talked to some great Christian family (older couple) who loved the church as fellow Christians and had taken the discussions. I didn't think I could ask more questions and testify more in Spanish but I was able to do that in the park. Also Another man was walking by us, told us we didn't believe in Christ or the Bible and so we testified of both. He asked where our Bible was and of course neither of us had one but Elder Dargon had a Book of Mormon in his hand. The man had a large textbook in his hand and we knew he liked to read. He looked at the Book, took it and started walking away after we told him it was free. I made him give me his word he would read it and it said yes. And he just walked away without yelling at us in Spanish anymore. It was a quick 2 minute interaction. It was quite comical.

This week we got Italians and native Russians and north Americans learning Russian. I've picked up quite a few Russian words. I have the accent down for Italian but the words are too close to Spanish it can get a little difficult. So I just speak Spanish too them. Until the other native Americans came we didn't have a link between the languages except for very broken English. But it is okay now =)

Yesterday I was able to learn a 101 words. This week God told me I wasn't working hard enough in the language. We have switched over to only Spanish but that can be difficult especially when not everyone keeps it.  But my goal has been 50 words a day and that has been achieved every day. Yesterday I doubled it. Its great.

We had a wonderful TRC Lesson this Saturday. It was so powerful. TRC is when you teach real life situations but only have 20 mins and only the one lesson. Its all or nothing. Some missionaries hate them but I love them for how much I feel the spirit.

A cool story with the week was in the Book Of Mormon. Its in Alma 4 (maybe?) when the Nephites had to come to battle against the Lamanites who were described as numerous as the sands of the sea. I can imagine coming over a hill and looking down, seeing these blood thirsty, angry people - with a crazy look in their eyes- all ready to kill you because of your beliefs. And they trusted in the Lord and fought. They had on Breastplates and shield while in Lamanites only a loincloth. And the Nephites were delivered only by the hand of God. It reminded me that we need to do everything we can to prepare and then go to battle. We cant walk out to battle with a loincloth and expect miracles if we haven't prepared. We have to seek out the best protection and weapons before hand and then rely on the Lord. That was a pretty strong lesson this week, especially because of my back.

Sorry I'm all over the place this morning. Not a ton happened but it will be exciting to see what happens this next week =)

Editors Note:

Randy will know on Sunday, September 25th where he will serve for his first mission assignment. He will leave the MTC or CCM on Tuesday, October 4th to go to this first assigned area. Can't wait to hear!