This week has truly been a blur. The days run together and I love it. It makes me feel like Im working hard. Its hard to believe that im really half way there (outta the CCM). I love every second of it. Even the tough times.
This week was one of my more challenging weeks. Just so you know, in case i didnt tell you, i have two teachers. Hermana Olsen in the morning time and Hermano Whittaker in the afternoon. FYI Hermano Whittaker was the first ínvestigator we taught at the beginning of our mtc experience. Anyways it was funny to see our investigator teach us how to use the gospel and to teach us about spanish grammar rules. Entonces, long story short, my teachers are awesome. I was kinda mad at myself one day because we had to have a Spiritual Thought with some other class just to change it up a bit, companionship with companionship. Also this week ive felt like ive hit a plateau in my language learning. I didnt feel as if i was progressing in the language. Anyways It was a good experience but the elders we were talking to knew A LOT more spanish than me and my comp and theyve only been here for like a week less than us. I did have to keep in mind that they are in the intermediate class so i shouldnt compare myself to them. I shouldnt say compare but measure up to them, ya know what i mean? After the lesson we had with them i just was frustrated that my spanish is not very good. I want to be fluent right now but it doesnt work that way. I had to remember the wise words that people keep telling me in Dear Elders. The language will come little by little. I shouldnt expect so much from myself at once. The reason i was feelin a bit stressed is because I have to remember a lot of things. How to prepare a 5 min lesson, different aspects of the gospel that we delve into in devos and what not and what- oh yeah spanish. Sorry if this is overwhelming for you to read but heres the good part. My teachers are awesome. They basically said forget spanish. Its the gospel that teaches you. If you learn the language of the gospel, spanish will come to you eventually. Especially hermano whittaker. He took on some questions that the class had and answered them with the scriptures. He said lets read moroni 7 and see if we cant answer our questions. It was awesome because he didnt plan on doing that for his lesson. He just picked out a random chapter and said if you keep your question in mind, youll receive respuestas. It was awesome because we all had different questions in mind and all received answers.
I LOVE my teachers. More importantly, I LOVE the scriptures. That really strengthened my testimony of The Book of Mormon. I have been reading them everyday and recording my thoughts in my notebook. It really is a blessing to see what a significant change can occur if you simply read. In The Book of Mormon, we can learn the answers to any answer we have. REALLY. Even if it is a seemingly petty question, it can be answered. I love learning about what happened to the Nephites once they thought they had it all figured out. They get chastised. I think that our lives are like that too. We think that we have all the answers and that nothing can stop us. But then we get to prideful and maybe start doubting why its necessary to go to church or to read The Book of Mormon. Dios does this to test our faith. Not the doubting part, but this cycle of pride. What good is faith if we only rely on ourselves? We need faith in Jesucristo in order to remember that we dont know everything but through Him we can. I hope that this made sense, and if i get some things wrong, go ahead and correct me Bishop :)
I just need to remember what [the apostle] Elder Jeffrey R. holland said: dont focus on the faith we dont have, focus on the faith we do have and expand from there, the best way forward is not to look backwards.
I love you guys and to answer some questions I´ll say this. Thanks for the offers for a set of Spanish scriptures, but i already have a set. I guess i forgot to mention that I received spanish scriptures, Preach My Gospel spanish, and other stuff on the first day of being here. And just to be clear about the food, I DO like it. I just thought it was interesting that its not stereotypical spanish food. Its really good but you have to be weary of the chicken on bone. And yes its messed my digestive system up a few times hehe :) And im not sick anymore, i finally caught my nose. And today i went to the temple AGAIN. It was awesome. It always is. The Temple is a house of God and im glad i got to go.
BTW i wanted to tell you real quick that traffic here is ridiculous. Everyone goes really fast and they all run stop lights. Also the roads are not very good condition. They randomly have speedbumps so that people wont go too too fast. Its kinda funny. They call the speed bumps dead policemen. And they way you merge is by honking your horn and moving over really quickly. We almost got in several accidents today, but we didnt :) we are all safe.
I love you all! Thanks for the letters that everybody sends! I will try to respond rapidly. BTW im not going to send anything by snail mail. Sorry to disappoint. It takes a while to get to you guys and i dont feel safe doing it. ALright!?!?
Love,
Elder Pagína
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