¡Hola Familia y amigos! Surprise! Cause of the training for the field on Friday, Pday´s Wednesday this week!
First off, I finally got my flight information! We leave the CCM about 10:30pm on Monday, and our plane leaves at about 1:28 am *cries* which means we´ll be having a layover in Bogota, Columbia and finally getting to Quito around 10am. That´s gonna be a long 48-hr day, but I´m stoked to finally be getting to Quito.
So my 5th Sunday here in the CCM, and it´s Sacrament Meeting. The way talks work here are: Everybody prepares a new talk in Spanish each week, and the Branch President randomly chooses people to speak. I walked in feeling confident and prepared, because I´d completely written and finished my talk several days before. Then I sat down and decided to mark the spots of the scriptures I was using (you can´t be too prepared, right?), and was filled with dread to realize I´d completely forgotten my talk in the classroom.
I quickly started praying for some tender mercy, like, for instance, that I wouldn´t be one of today´s lucky choices for talks. But I just knew I was doomed the one day I was prepared and simultaneously wasn´t. I started putting scriptures together in a makeshift talk, while, ironically, the song "I need thee every hour" was sung. Finally, after the Sacrament, the names were listed. Annnnnd my name was totally called on. Funny how it works out that way. But it´s okay. My situation was (also ironically) an example of the theme of the talks: Faith in Jesus Christ. But the impromptu Spanish talk went fairly well, and it goes to show that Heavenly Father blesses us when we are diligent in our efforts and demonstrate faith.
A few days this week, we played Red Light Green Light, Simon Says, and learned the Spanish Alphabet. it took me back to my childhood, but was sure a funner way to learn Spanish.
Also I forgot to mention as part of last week´s schedule that we do TALL (Technology Assisted Language Learning) almost every day on the computers, during the afternoon.
One of the days this week (I think Saturday) I decided, right when getting ready for the day, to speak only Spanish all day, That was my goal. It was hard, and I had to catch myself when I spoke English occasionally. I was a lot quieter that the other days, but it definitely helped my Spanish to be strengthened, because I was forced to look for ways to communicate.
We also met up in our casa (house) to play board games as all the elders and kinda hang out, but then there was an announcement not to a few days later, so it was our first and our last. See pics below
Also, I FINALLY FOUND MY (second) COUSIN HERMANA LEWIS! Also see pics below
Random analogy from one of our Hermanas (Sister Missionaries) but I really like it: The Priesthood is like an umbrella, just because the guy is holding it doesn´t mean the women don´t also receive all the blessings.
Okay, here´s the cool and really humbling experience I didn´t have time to share last week. Remember that TRC is where we teach investigator lessons on Saturdays to local volunteers (usually members or less-actives):
One of the other teachers came into our classroom and she told me & Elder Robertson that we taught her brother during TRC 2 weeks ago (the only person we´d taught at this point for TRC besides other missionaries). She said she´d been praying for a spiritual experience for her brother, because he was a member but his testimony had diminished, so she invited him to TRC. He told her that he´d had a spiritual experience, and could feel the Spirit and our love for him even though we just met him. What´s crazy is that we personally felt like that lesson had gone down the drain, because we asked so many get-to-know-you questions that we ran out of time to give the actual lesson! So we kinda just threw our lesson aside and bore testimony of prayer, and asked him to pray more, with intention, to feel God´s love. The Sister-Teacher thanked us for helping him to have that experience, but I think it had a bigger impact on me. This unexpected outcome really bore testimony to me that the most important thing investigators feel in a lesson is the Spirit. Regardless of the message, the Spirit is what converts hearts, and is vital in inviting people to come closer to Christ, which really is our purpose. I´m so eternally grateful that we could be used as instruments in our Heavenly Father´s hands that day.
Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Stolle
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