Life Lesson

Love you more than….Exploring the rainforest like jungle and cavern in the mountain above my area! Today we went in the morning with an investigator to go hike the mountain. The investigator is a really cool guy even if he isn’t really progressing. The whole time I was thinking of Jurassic park, ancient Indian Dominican Lamanites and how the cold weather at the top is nothing like the snow covered rocky mountains. I have like a three ring tan line on my neck from white to sunburnt to kind of tan wearing t-shirts and the collared white shirts. 

One kind of funny thing though, is how we wake up to about 75 degree weather in the morning and it feels cold! I feel my friend Elder Porters California pain, the DR has destroyed my cold tolerance.

On the hike today, we found a chocolate bean tree (cocoa bean)
and I had some. It's nothing like chocolate but its good

Things are constantly changing here, yet it feels so natural. We keep getting fruit from an old lady member and so I keep trying new fruits and my Spanish is getting better, even if my accent is officially terrible with my fifth, including MTC, American comp.

Holy cow this week went by fast, and I don’t know if its necessarily bad or good. We have been doing a lot of door knocking which is really door yelling looking for new people who are interested. I don’t really mind it anymore but its hard that it takes time and it doesn’t bring a lot of new people either. The constant struggle to find the people the Lord has prepared and to place my beloved sons (my new companions) first Book of Mormon.

 

My new companion "mi hijo amado Elder Bouwhuis

Elder Bouwhuis is a really cool guy and although he is still in shock, I think from trying to take it all in, we are getting to be good friends. We often talk about people back home that we both know, places and experiences in Ogden. I really hope he doesn’t get discouraged about his Spanish or about having to walk so much everyday or that we are spending time trying to find people because I kind of got frustrated with all of that during training and it was hard. I was frustrated with my Spanish, my fear to speak and that my companion couldn’t help me really. I don’t know how to be the best comp I can be so any tips would be bien recibido. 

Recent convert that is a "Tigre" and reminds me of my brother Joshua

Kind of funny and crazy experience we had the other day. We were walking down a street in our neighborhood with nice houses and we went to a house with a lady on the porch and so we went up and talked with her. She was a little rude and professed her love for her religion so didn’t want to listen to us, we asked if there was anybody living nearby that could have use for to good lookin’ missionaries and she pointed us down the street. Coming back up the street we saw a man and my comp went up to his house to talk to him, right across the street from the soury lady. I was a little prideful and smug that we could teach someone and show her, but boy did I get humbled. My poor companion starts talking to the man in Spanish and he says in English “Wow your Spanish is terrible, I cant understand anything you are saying. It was understandable for sure but of course it wouldn’t be perfect.” He then gave us a "life lesson" because he is a "teacher of life". We got stuck listening to a man that was really nice however I would compare to the judges and lawyers like Zeezrom that faced Alma and Amulek in Book of Mormon. He talked about how life is hard and how all religions are judgmental and therefore hypocritical. He had really good English and knew a lot and just kind of set traps for people that are religious. The whole time listening to him I couldn’t stop but thinking of the wonderful gospel of Jesus Christ. HE would bring up a point and expound and I would just smile since Jesus lives, has given us prophets and personal revelation to guide us and that there is hope in something greater than us called the plan of happiness. We left humbled, but more firm in our faith and happy to be here. We joked how the hardest experiences are just the precursors to the miracles. My comp turned to me and said "like Nate Ford would say, you win some you lose most"

Talking of people from home, Essie Jane Stromberg is in the march liahona! Elder Bouwhuis and I both freaked out, It’s super weird seeing a familiar face.

 

A cavern we found on our p-day hike today

Spiritual thought. I was think about a few things this week. I am almost all the way through the Book of Mormon, in the book of Ether. The experience of the traveling of the brother of Jared and his family was something new to me.

The family traveled and got to the sea and were set up to start there way to "a land of promise" but the land the lord prepared, had to wait because the chosen people or the family of Jared weren’t prepared. The family waited four more years before starting the process building boats to cross the sea. The Lord said unto them repent because you haven’t been remembering me or saying your prayers. Life and missionary work is definitely like that! There are people, places and things prepared for us to encounter, but we personally aren’t ready. Imagine if every blessing from God and every prompting of the holy ghost was listened to, we would be so much better off because we would be like the Savior. Prayer and preparation go hand in hand. If we don’t pray and act to prepare, the lord has to wait to bless us until we are ready. He wants more than anything else to help, I know it and I feel it. 

Muchísimo amor 

Elder Cheffrllld  (Dominican for Sheffield)

Deep fried oreoas, a p-day night tradition