September 5, 2013
Hello my dear
family and friends! I hope life is great in the fantastic Estados Unidos. Speaking
of letters, don´t send me any more in Mexico. Send them to California!
Something crazy
this week. We watched an old devotional from Novemeber 2011 on Sunday with
Elder Christofferson. Guess who I saw in the audience? Blake Dallon! He was
sitting in the 3rd row of the choir. I laughed. I hope he´s enjoying the end of
his mission too!
Espanol. It´s
great. I love it. I don´t know it very well or speak it very well, but I´m
beginning to love it as a language. I love the different way you express
things. It implies different things and brings such a different meaning to what
you are reading. It´s fantastic! I made a new goal for my language study these
next 10 days: treat my Spanish study like it was Chem 105 or Math 113 (all my
BYU friends will know waht that means). But I´m going to study it constantly,
speak Spanglish as much as I can, and jsut enjoy every minute of being immersed
in it. I´m so glad I know how to study (people in my district are struggling to
focus on just studying). Huge blessing in my life to know how to hit the books
hard! Oh! And I figured by the time I leave here, I´ll have the grammar
understanding of Spanish 3, but a ton more vocab. (in case you were wondering
how much I can learn in 6 weeks).
So a few other
things. I caught a bug earlier this week (its gone, thank goodness) and we had
to miss a lot of class becuase of it. My companion was so sweet and loving when
I was sick. One thing I´m learning a lot from this experience is having charity
and patience. I thought I had a good amount of both, but I´m realizing I
didn´t. So I continually am studying and working on those two! Check out 1 Cor.
13 and Moroni 7. They´re fantastic about charity. Oh! Another goal I have. Be
positive! I guess my district has been one of the most depressed/stressed
districts my teachers have ever seen, so we had a "Come to Jesus"
talk on Sunday, and we all have been so much happier since then! Hooray for
communication!
Another cool thing
I learned this week was about the Holy Ghost. My teacher, Hna. Olsen, told us
to pause for about 10 seconds while were teaching to listen to the Spirit
instead of saying the first thing that comes to our heads. Boy, is it hard. But
I´ve been trying to do that, and my lessons are SO much better. The Spirit
directs what I need to hear in order to bring the person closer to Christ. It´s
crazy what 10 seconds of pausing can do! It feels awkward at times, but I´m
trying to ,listen more to the Spirit as I teach instead of relying on my
awesome teaching skills I inheritied form swim lessons. Cause swim lessons and
the gospel go hand in hand. Going along with
this, I want to be the kind of missionary who can work great with ward members.
Can people email me what makes you trust a missionary with teaching the gospel
to your friends? I really want to know and your advice would be invaluable!!! Please, and thank
you.
Oh my goodness! I
need to tell you all about one of the main ideas I learned this week. It´s
about M&M´s: members and missionaries. Members are SO important in
missionary work. I can´t stress that enough! I´m still only in training,
but we talked a lot about it this week. It started when we had a
"member" (a missionary pretending to be a member) come with us on one
of our visits. It helps the investigator understand things so much more with
someone who has a normal life there to bear testimony of truths you are
teaching. The Spirit is there a lot more, the investigator feels so
much more comfortable, and it just makes the whole lessons about 1000X better.
En serio! But I encourage ALL of you: go out with the missionaries!
Befriend new converts and investigators! If you feel like you can´t do
missionary work, just start by being an investigator or new convert´s
friend. It makes a whole world of difference and blessings will be poured
out on your head. Reach Ch. 13 of PMG to learn more about how to do
missionary work. It recommends that each family make their own ward
mission plan.
I HAVE 10 DAYS
LEFT IN THE CCM. I´ve been here for a month. The time has flown by! I
still can´t believe that it´s gone by so fast. It´s really exciting (and also
kinda nervewracking) to think that in 10 days from now, I´ll be back in
the greatest country of them all in the wonderful state of California teaching
people about Jesus Christ in SPANISH! It´s so crazy. I love the CCM and the
Spirit here, but I´m ready to go do some real work with some real people! As
I´m getting ready to head out, I´m trying to decide some new goals based on
what I have learned about missionary work here. Here´s what I´m thinking:
1) Be 110%
obedient. Perfect obedience, just like the 2000 stripling warriors (or 2000
jovenes). I´m realizing how hard that is. We had a talk from one of our
teachers about obedience and since then, I´ve been thinking about what I can do
better to be more obedient. And wow! Do I have a lot to work on. Like getting
to class for personal study on time! (Being on time? A cinch for me, right?) Or
being in bed at 10:30 (that´s always been easy for me!) or other CCM rules. So I
think that is one thing I´m going to work on while I´m here.
2) Be a PMG
missionary. Where to start? By reading PMG cover to cover. I read it for
Personal Progress and loved it then, but as a missionary, I love it even more.
That book is SO great. I´ve been studying sections and chapters out of it the
entire time I´ve been here, but I´m going to read and study the rest of the
sections and continue to during my mission.
3) Sacrifice more.
Elder Andersen said "you sacrifice for what you love, and you love what
you sacrifice for." I want to sacrifice everything I can for the Lord
these next 17 months. It´s hard to figure out what else to sacrifice. It´s
going to take some prayer to figure that one out. But I´m excited to give
myself more to the Lord to be even more in tune to His will for me!
So before I go,
let me share one spiritual insight from this week. I was deeply studying Enos
this week. I realized that to keep unconverted people righteous, you need to
continually stir them up to remember the Lord through hastening, teaching basic
doctrines, etc. That´s why apostles, bishops, stake presdients, auxillary
leaders, etc. always talk about the importance of being converted to the Lord.
We don´t want to the people who it is easy to fall away if we aren´t constantly
reminded of doing the basics (going to church, reading scriptures, prayer,
etc).
Well, I love you!
I miss you a ton, and wish I could be there for all the adventures at home, but
I know this is what I´m suppose to do. This is the hardest thing I´ve done, but
I wouldn´t trade it for anything in the world. Anything. Have fun at school,
band, BYU, other universities, and enjoy the end of the summer weather! You are
all in my thoughts and prayers everyday!
Love you!
Hermana
Lau
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