Hola Family and Friends!
What a pleasure it
is to write you all on this fine PDay! If you dont speak spanish, my
subject line translates to "I have one week left at the MTC" and i dont
really know what to think about that.. Its so weird! It is going by so
quickly! I hope my whole mission doesnt go this fast or i wont even have
time to enjoy it!! Thank you for all the emails. They make my day. PDay
is great and all, but the only part i really like about it is hearing
from all of you. Sorry if you dont like receiving this general email, i
am kinda just throwing everyone that emails me on this list. So you dont
have to read it if you dont want to. It wont hurt my feelings at all.
I am filled with all kinds of emotion with this being
my last week. I am really going to miss mexico. The weather is the most
amazing thing in the entire earth. Heaven is going to have this exact
weather- only less mosquitos. Or 'mosques" as the natives call them.
They think its hilarious that we call them mosquitos because in
spanish "ito" means tiny, so we are calling them tiny mosques... I dont
really understand latino humor. That is something i am going to have to
work on. However, i am not going to miss the food. Remember how i said
my stomach was starting to hurt in my last email? It did until
yesterday. Everyone has been getting colds too. I got the bug on
saturday and today i woke up a little bit better! You cant come to
mexico and expect to not get sick though, so i am okay with it! We have
been talking about eating a burger at the airport on the way home since
the third day we got here. I cannot wait for that moment. I love
america. I will never live outside of america. Unless its australia.
Yeah.
If you are wondering what i did this week, refer to my
last email because at the MTC you do the same thing everyday. Have you
guys seen the movie Groundhog day? Thats how i feel. I can tell you
exactly what is going to happen everyday and who is going to say what
and everything. Except i dont get to wake up to that catchy "Put your
little hand in mine" song that he wakes up to every morning. I wake up
to dog fights and sirens and yelling in spanish and an alarm clock that i
have almost thrown out the window a few times. But i love It!!
Seriously i love the MTC. That doesnt mean i dont wanna get out of here,
but i really do enjoy it here.
Me and elder hacking had two really cool experiences
here. They are both really long stories so i will just sum them up and
you guys can fill in the gaps and details with your imagination. However
you have to have a pretty intense imagination, just incase you think
these stories are boring or not cool. But trust me, they were....
Once upon a time in a city far far away, which happened
to be called mexico, there was an elder named me. Okay thats enough of
that. So, on saturday we had our personal study in our classroom and one
of our teachers came in and walked straight to me and elder hacking if
we would do her a favor. We said Sí. She asked us if we would be the
example of teaching the restoration to her in front of her district
because she wants to teach them a lesson about asking inspired questions
and listening to the investigator. We were a little nervous but said
sure. Then she told us that she wanted the lesson to be an hour. In
spanish. And we had twenty minutes to prepare. Now this doesnt sound
like that big of a deal, but keep in mind that our longest lesson here
has been 25 minutes because there isnt enough time to have everyone
teach super long lessons. Also, we dont speak very good spanish. My
spanish is the best in the district and its not even very good. Okay, so
anyway, we said yes and she thanked us and left. We prepared as best we
could, prayed our guts out, and went to the lesson. Yeah, you could say
the the spirit took that lesson and ran with it. Honestly i dont really
remember all that i said, but all i know is i spoke pretty flawless
spanish and understood everything that our investigator said, and that
when the spirit prompted me to challenge her to be baptized at the end
she wouldnt have been able to say no. It was a really cool and humbling
experience. I wish i could take some of the credit, but i didnt do
anything. Oh, and the lesson was 56 minutes. We had a bunch of the
elders and sisters from that district thank us for doing that and tell
us how much they learned from it. I was just honored that heavenly
father gave us that oppurtunity to learn that it doesnt matter how well
you know the language, if you do your best and put it in the lords
hands, the spirit will teach them between the lines of your broken
spanish. Sorry this email is so long, but i just like sharing these
kinds of experiences. Hopefully these emails can be saved somehow so i
can read them later because my handwriting is pretty bad in my journal..
I will make this story much shorter. yesterday me and
elder hacking had an opportunity to teach someone who was pretending to
be a catholic. We were told we had twenty minutes for the lesson so we
went in expecting that. As we were getting to know him, he changed his
role to his real self. Which was weird because he didnt tell us. As we
continued to figure out what was up with this guy, he shared one of his
problems with us. It was a pretty big problem regarding his ex
girlfriend who will not even speak a word to him. He is trying to repent
but he cant feel the peace because he knows she still feels the guilt
but she wont let him talk to her. I know i will have problems like this
on my mission, but this was intense. And i knew it was real. We spoke to
him a little more and tried to feel inspiration on what to tell him,
but nothing came. Finally i had the impression to tell him that i have
no idea what he should do, but that god knows. I asked if we could pray
about it so we knelt down and he offered a heartfelt ten minute prayer,
much of which i didnt understand. We then left, it had been 45 minutes
and we were beyond depressed because we felt like we failed in helping
him. And we were confused why he told us two different stories. We told
our teacher all of this in a negative way and she went and asked him
about it all. Come to find out later, he broke his role because he
trusted us as representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ. He knew that we
can help him because he felt it in our spirits. We felt as if we didnt
help him, but he received an answer to his prayer, to his real problem.
He also shared that there are two classes of missionaries. There are
messengers, and there are representatives of jesus christ. Somehow i
guess me and elder hacking have blindly stumbled upon being
representatives of jesus christ. I know it is because we work our tails
off and are obedient while a lot of others mess around, but it was a
huge tender mercy to me. I finally felt like i did something with all
this effort and time i have put in. I helped someone with a real problem
in their real life.
I know that as to my own strength i am nothing. I do not boast of myself but i boast of my god. -Ammon
Sorry
that was so long. I am getting pretty quick at typing!! I will end this
letter here. Thank you for all the support. My prayers are with you
all.
Love, Elder Doman
Mitch and his Roomies!
