January 26, 2016

I just though about this but I need a plaque scripture and Im thinking 1 Corinthian 13-11, look it up haha. The quote of the week is from Elder Hammond in my district and he said "Missionaries are like Jedi because youre not allowed to love but you can use the force (the Spirit).

Something we do every day is teach practice investigators. It is really awesome because we practice teaching lessons two or three times a day. It is a lot of awesome practice and the entire lesson has to be in Spanish. We have some that are progressing investigators and we teach 5 or 6 times and then at nights we have a one time lesson. We are getting new progressing investigators this week so that is going to be awesome.

So last week for p day(its more like p couple of hours) we have two hours to walk around the city and explore. We got completos but they didn´t even have hotdogs in them. It was like this brisket stuff so we are going to continue our search for a real completo this week. We walked around the city and honestly it didn't feel too much different from any American city. The drivers didn't really care if they hit you and the pedestrians don't really care if they get hit. After that we got to go to the temple. While we were waiting for the session to start I was able to clutch a 20 minute nap in the waiting room. It was awesome, it is about the same size as the Columbia temple. It was a really good break and we go every two weeks so I'll get to go again next week. The goal for today's p day is to find a soccer jersey so I can channel my soccer skills into beating the Latinos.

So we got a new mission president (which is weird because they serve for 3 years so they don't change very often). The way I met him was pretty funny. Me and my companion go into the cafeteria to eat and everyone is wearing suits(and we are just in our short sleeve white shirts) getting ready to sing to the mission president when he walks in. So we both sprint back to our room(A good 10 minutes away on foot) and change into our suits real quick and start sprinting back. When we get to the door the President and his wife were walking in so we said hi and shook their hands. After that we had to turn the corner and sprint the rest of the way to the cafeteria to sing to the President. By this time we were both sweating buckets, but we were the first missionaries to meet the President so it was worth it.

So something about Spanish is that their "b's" and "v's" are interchangeable so they use either sound when they feel like it or something. Anyone learning Spanish I have a couple phrases you're going to want to learn:

Comó se dice .... en español? (How do you say.... in spanish?)

Comó? (What?)

No sé (I don't know)

Me olvido (I forgot)

Uno vez más, pero más lentos (One more time, slower)

These are all pretty crucial to learning Spanish and being successful in speaking like a native.

Something we do every morning is go play either basketball or soccer. Usually the gringos play basketball and the Latinos play soccer, but somehow in a longer story the basketball got stolen. So now the gringos play soccer. I just want to say I scored a goal (it hit me and went the right direction) and as a result I am an honorary Latino. Usually the Latinos are laughing too hard at the gringos to play but sometimes we can get good games in.

Every morning they wake us up promptly at 6:45 by very loudly playing Christian soul music. It is pretty interesting because I'm not sure where they got the music but it has to be from a deep south Baptist Church.

Another adventure I had was when we were going to personal study but the building was locked. This was no problem however because one of the windows was not locked. I slipped the window open and popped in. I pretty much became a hero by opening the doors, so no big deal.

Another thing is that a group is leaving the MTC and in the group is Elder Cachari and Elder Mendoza. I'm going to be sad to see them go and I want to go with them haha, but I have another month.

One thing we do as missionaries a lot is pray. We must pray at least 20 times a day. This is not something I'm used to. I prayed before I came but not this much. Another thing with prayer is we focus a lot more on having a conversation with our Heavenly Father instead of rattling off a list of things we want like a Christmas list. I think everyone should read Enos and follow his example of desire to talk with God everytime they prayer. He "wrestled" wtih god. It really changes the prayer and how you feel after. Also something that is important is to listen after you pray. Instead of getting up as soon as you're done and forgetting everything, stay on your knees for a minute and just listen. It really changes your prayers.

Love you all!!

Elder Cheney