Bueno como esta mi familia?!?!
One of these days I'm just going to write my entire email in
Spanish :) It will be so fun. But on second thought maybe not, because I don't
know where the accents are on this computer.... and that might
confuse Google translate when you use it.
Anyways, this week was a good week. We are steadily improving
the number of lessons we teach each week, so that's a good thing. We also found
a handful of new investigators, so our teaching pool is growing. Last night we
found 3 new people to teach thanks to a referral from some sister missionaries.
They basically call and say "Hey this guy wants to be taught in
Spanish" and so we went and got him. We taught him and his friends about
Joseph Smith and Revelation and now he's going to come play soccer with us
tomorrow. It's not church, but it's a start haha. But yeah, that's how
referrals normally work for us. We don't get them too often but when we do it's
just something like "Hey we heard Spanish music coming from that house"
or "They speak Spanish". It's not much but it's enough for us! So we
go over and give 'em the gospel.
I'm feeling pretty good about my Spanish. It truly is something
I hope I keep throughout my life. I hope I'll have enough opportunities to
speak it when I get home so that I can keep it. Elder Gibb and I travelled with
a member to help him apply for food stamps. We were there to translate for him.
I was a little worried about my ability to do it, because discussions
about topics other than the gospel aren't very common, but I soon
surprised myself that I was actually pretty capable. And then it kind of
hit me "Whoa, I'm speaking two languages!". I thought it was pretty
neat. Pretty proud of myself. Gift of tongues is a pretty sweet thing :)
It snowed the other day. Definitely getting colder over here.
Elder Gibb is hilarious. He is never comfortable. He is either blasting
the heat or the AC, no in between. But Elder Gibb is a good companion. He likes
to talk a lot so that keeps things entertaining. His Spanish is still broken
Spanish but it's getting smoother and he's able to say more in lessons. He
always wants to improve himself so he works hard at it. He really is a good
companion to have. He's healthy, works hard, and has fun.
Well I really have no complaints. After Jonathan's baptism last
week it's back to work looking for who's next. We never know who God has
prepared, so we just have to do out part by inviting everyone. We're working
well and our branch is starting to catch the vision. The branch council was
really involved yesterday in communicating good missionary opportunities with
holiday activities that are coming up. There's nothing more exciting for a
missionary than to see his branch or ward really step up to the plate and try
to get involved. So there's a new energy for missionary work in the branch and
it's fun to be a part of it. We just have to follow up with them and help them
maintain it.
Elder Gibb and I were the new kids in town because we were
doubled into our area at the beginning of the transfer, but now the members are
getting to know and trust us. I've really met lots of amazing people out on my
mission. In Utah we were surrounded by people with our same standards
(which has it's own nature of difficulties at times, but is more often a great
support), but here there are so many unsung heroes that are
diligently living their faith even though the meetings are small (we
don't even use the chapel for sacrament meeting). Our branch is just a small little
group of families that come to church as a safe haven from the troubles and
influences of the world. I love stepping into our church building, it's
something that I've really come to appreciate, there's always a familiar spirit
there. I love it. It's a home away from home. And the branch is my
Spanish family. They even come with all the drama of Hispanic culture
:) The branch members are seriously like a Spanish novella; they are all
so dramatic and quick to be offended. But they're also the nicest and
most loving people you could ever meet.
Until next week!
Elder
Graf
 |
| Picture of a city named Covington just 10 minutes or so to the north of us. It's actually in the other Elders' area (did I tell you that there are 2 sets of missionaries for our branch here? Well there are.) But we were travelling there to help translate for one of our members while he was applying for food stamps. |
