Week 27

Hi!

Well this past week I hit my 6 month mark! I´ve been dreaming of this day ever since I was in the CCM, because I heard that once you hit 6 months the language isn´t really a problem. Well they were right! I am still learning a lot and I´m not satisfied with where I´m at BUT I am finally to a point where it’s enjoyable! It’s actually fun to go out and try and get different ideas across in Spanish and try to apply new grammar things I studied about and I can sometimes go a whole lesson without the people asking me what I meant! Its progress!

Me and Elder Cook are having a blast out here and we are going to beg President to give us one more transfer together even though it’s not likely because I have been in Punta for 6 months and missionaries usually aren´t allowed to stay in one area more than 6 months. But it’s worth a shot.

 We had a really good (and much needed) lesson yesterday! On Saturday we had a trip to the temple planned with an investigator family whose parents need to get married and that is the only thing stopping them! They consider themselves Mormon and go to church always but are having trouble finding the encouragement (and money) to get married. We thought a trip to the temple and a lesson on eternal families with a married member was just what they needed. We planned everything out to have the member take them to the temple and meet us there for the lesson, but 30 mins. before it was time for them to go some of their extended family showed up and the dad didn´t get off work until a lot after the time they were supposed to go. Also they didn´t bother to call us for 3 hours so we were sitting in the CCM waiting and waiting and waiting.

After that the next day was Sunday and Juana, an investigator that was supposed to be baptized this Saturday didn´t show up to church so we had to cancel her baptism. It was a really rough chain of events and we were just kind of dragging through the lessons until we got to one with Esmelquis. He had a neighbor over and we had started the restoration with him but since his friend was there we decided to start over again and teach them both. They were both really receptive and had tons of questions, but they were questions that fit in perfectly with the lesson. Whenever we would answer their questions they would get this look of pure excitement and say that it makes so much sense! They were so excited about everything we taught and we ended up teaching them for over 2 hours! We kept answering their questions and they would have discussions and then ask us to talk and the spirit was so strong.

Something I am a little ashamed to admit is that before I got out here I took the Gospel for granted. I had been taught the doctrine all my life and I never knew anything besides the truth. I just kinda thought everyone felt that way, but to watch the light of Christ take hold of these people and see the happiness and the clarity this gospel brings makes me never want to take anything about this gospel for granted ever again. I love being out here and even though my Spanish isn´t perfect the message is and the people are soft hearted enough to look past my errors in order to see the truth of the message. So it was a rough few days but it ended on a good note!

Love,

Elder Harsh