Week 6: Love One Another

Small Update

When I write my next email, I will be in Texas! The mtc is great, but I'm also itching to get to the field. T8his week was pretty hard for me, if I'm being honest. I spent a lot of time being angry and upset. I do love it here, but I had lots of bad moments too. The main reason was because of my companionship, but I will talk more about that later, for my spiritual thought this week. Anyways, sorry for writing too much, thank you to those who actually read what I write!

Language

Spanish has been really good. I've been learning a lot, but I've still got a lot of work to do. Every week, we take a language assessment test to see where we're at. They ask us to rate ourselves on some things, and then we record ourselves saying some stuff. We already thought that test was rigged, but I proved it this week. normally rate myself honestly, which is pretty low, but since it was our last one, I rated myself really high. I said I could basically speak perfectly, and then when I had to respond to questions, I got questions a lot harder than I usually do. One was about LGBTQ stuff, and the other was about if I was a plumber, and I had to find out what was wrong with your house, what questions I would ask. Although it was pretty bad, I actually answered the first question, but for the plumbing, I was like bruh, I'd struggle with that in English. So I took 3 seconds and said "¿Que es la problema en su casa?" I should've gotten a very low rating, but I guess confidence is key, because I got advanced. Lol, everyone thought it was pretty funny, because I'm definitely not advanced.

Ties

Well if you read the last email, you would know that I found some amazing ties at the temple store, but was unable to but them. I asked the lady to save them for a week, and she said she would, but only I believed her. We just barely left the temple, and at the store, she didn't save them. She said that she tried, but it's a little sad because they were pretty ties. But, I brought money this time, and I found some other ties, that might even be better. So although I didn't what I originally wanted, I am happy.

Sensitive Spirit

This week, I've got two spiritual thoughts, and they're both important. So on Sunday, two of the Hermanas in our zone asked me to give them a blessing, and so I did. I always get really nervous about giving blessings, but for both of them, I really did feel that God was putting words in my mouth. After we finished, I just felt so so happy. Happiness is the natural result of being close to God. When I went to bed that night, I said "God, I want to always feel like this." Then the next day, I was just talking to one of the Hermanas I blessed, and some other people. We were just talking, and trying to be funny, I made a joke. It wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good or kind either. What I noticed was how I felt right after. Right after I said it, that happiness high I felt was gone. I felt embarrassed, angry, immature, and upset. And I was like "woah, it was just a joke." But I just felt bad, and compared to how I felt the day before, I was like "OK what happened?" And I knew right away that I had offended the spirit. I learned that the spirit is very sensitive, and we have to watch our thoughts, words, actions, and our hearts to know if we really have the spirit with us. In Alma 37:36, it says "let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord." Are we really doing this? When we do, think, or say things, we need to keep in mind where those things come from. Are they really Christlike? Or are they not? If they aren't, where do you think they come from? We need to be aware of ourselves, and who we're listening to. If we're not listening to the savior, who else is there to listen to other than Satan? They're both always talking to us, trying to get us to follow them. The different is that one is good, and one is bad. Why not just choose to be good?

Love One Another

OK, I was pondering what to call my email, and I was gonna just call it "Love" because that was my biggest lesson this week, but then I remembered how last Sunday, the Hermanas in our district sung love one another for sacrament meeting. It was beautifully done. So as I mentioned, things were not good in my companionship. I was noticing everything bad that they would say or do, and I let their attitudes determine how I felt. I feel like we should be more obedient to the rules, be better example for others, but most importantly, I needed them to stop complaining. I noticed one weakness of mine though, and that's confrontation. Although I've spent weeks feeling like we've been lacking, I have barely been able to talk to them about it. I've tried to give lots of hints during devos and spiritual thoughts and stuff. I got two blessings from Elder Wilcox and Peterson in our house, and I felt like I needed to be more bold with my words, and I still do, but yesterday it hit me what I was really failing to do. I wasn't letting myself love my companions despite their flaws. For our house devotional, Elder Wilcox led it, and he told me how he was gonna share a message about love, in an effort to help my companions strive to be better. Although his message wasn't directed to me, I realized what I was doing wrong. Yes, it's important to be obedient, but you can still love someone despite who they are. God loves all of his children. Elder Wilcox shared a few personal experiences of where he made bad judgements based off of people at first. But then when he discovered who they are, and what they've been through, and he couldn't help feeling love for them. It's true. If you only knew what that person went though, and what they've struggled with, no matter who they are, you couldn't help but love them. I spent all week trying to fix my companions, when I really just needed to love them. I did talk with them for a while last night, and it was really good. It's important to be obedient, but if there is no love, you just won't have the spirit. The first great commandment is to love God, and the second is to love thy neighbor as thyself. It's a commandment. For one of my companions, since we're like polar opposites, I found it a little harder to just show love for him, and Elder Wilcox also helped me with that. He shared how God has an undying, unconditional love for all his children, even those who you really do not love, and that if we pray for it, God can bless us with a portion of that love. If you are struggling to love someone, ask God to bless you with some of them love that he has for them. It's so much better to just love people than be angry all the time. Jesus Christ said to love your enemies, so do it! You can really tell who is a true disciple of Jesus Christ, based on how they treat others.

- Elder Wride

Pictures:

1, 8, 9, 10, 11. Hermanas being weird