Tuesday, July 21, 2009

July 13, 2009

The past week has been good, but also super crazy! As you know it was transfers last week. The Tuesday before transfers I thought for sure that I was going to KC3! I thought Elder Caceres was going to stay and I was going to go. Well, Tuesday at around 2:00 we got a call from President Van Komen. He first asked to talk to Elder Caceres. He called him to be a district leader in Salina, KS. I think he will do very good there. He is an excellent missionary and a super hard worker! 

Anyway, after President talked to him he asked to talk to me. I was pretty nervous, because I didn't know what he was going to say. Then he asked me to be a trainer. I was assigned to train Elder Edgar Higareda. He was born in Cancun, Mexico then moved to Indiana at age 11. He's completely fluent in English and Spanish. He's a pretty cool guy. He's definitely  going through some "growing pains" as he adjusts to mission life. That's normal though. It makes me realize how accustomed to this form of life I am. Everything is just habit for me. A phrase I've been saying a lot the past week is, "Don't worry, you'll get used to it." Haha! "What? We can't eat in the car?" ... "Don't worry you'll get used to it." "What? We have to stay in our nasty sweaty proselyting clothes while we plan at night?" "Don't worry, you'll get used to it." Haha! It's great! Hahaha! 

So yeah, I was super nervous to train a spanish Elder in a spanish area. I mean, my spanish still isn't spectacular, but he was going to be coming in speaking perfect spanish and probably able to teach in spanish better than me, but I was supposed to teach him things. The Lord definitely always knows how to humble me to new depths! It was one of the few times on my mission that I doubted (somewhat) that I could do something. I know that I know this language. I know grammar. I know vocabulary (fairly well). I can read spanish better than many people I teach. But God knows that for some reason I still have a fear of speaking this language. I don't know why, but I do. And that fear has hindered me a lot. This past week has been very interesting though! We teach a lot of spanish people, and before this week I would teach small parts of the lesson the look at Elder Caceres for him to take over the rest. Well, suddenly I'm the one teaching most of the lesson with my companion looking at me to take over for him. It's amazing how fast the Lord can force fear right out of you! Haha! The thing is . . . I can't afford to be afraid to speak this language anymore. I have to speak because if I don't then there is no one else to pick up my weakness. My companion is a good missionary, but he's still very green and he is looking to me to teach. So yeah. I've realized that I can speak a lot more than I thought I could. 

I've been super tired all week! That has really sucked! We've also been walking everywhere this week because Elder Higareda doesn't have a bike yet. Blah! I hate the heat and humidity here! Haha! Something that was very funny was Elder Higareda's first street contact. It was a guy BBQing in his driveway. A beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other! One of the first things he said was (looking straight at my comp) "In 20 words or less tell me when you believe." My comp was pretty taken back by that but he did a great job! I thought it was pretty funny that he put him so on the spot on his first day. Haha!

Well, Sunday was great! We had 5 investigators at church! Diego is still doing great as well! Still set for July 25th! I'm really excited for that! Well, that's about it for my week. 

I love this country, also! Actually the other day we were walking down a street and we came up to an office building and in the parking lot was laying an American Flag. It had fallen off it's holder on the building and it looked like it had been there at least a few days. It made me really sad. I'm sure other people must have seen it there before me. I love everything that flag stands for. I picked it up and put it back in place. For some people  that wouldn't mean much, but for some reason it meant a lot to me at that time that our flag was waving in the air rather than laying on the dirty ground.

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