This week has been the most stressful, frustrating, irritatings, spiritual, helpful, trying, loving, helping, bipolar, free, ñalskdfjañsdlkj week of my entire life!!!!!!!! Training is so stressful! I have never had to have such a large responsibility in my entire life! I had moments like "ok, I can do this!" and I have also had moments of "I will never be good enough or adequate to train a missionary of the lord", but the message that I will have in this email is that God truly does know, love, care, and help all of us.
Ok, so you guys probably want to know about my son, Elder Chico! I find it funny because I always called madi "chica" and so I find that a lot of the time, I just say "hey, chico, vamos" :) haha but he truly is an incredible missionary! he is almost 19, and he is from leon, Mexico. He is really organized, he wants to work hard, and he is clean. LOVE HIM! He already teaches pretty well, and all he needs is more time, but he is truly an awesome missionary, and I know that the Lord was truly watching out for me when he told President Morales to put him as my son. Before his mission, he taught latin dance classes to save money, so we dance quite frequently (not together, that would be... weird). he loves my music, and he is really chill.
Firstly, I was tell you guys a little bit about my week: PRAYER! That's it! We prayed and went to work. This is the first week that we have been permitted, and encouraged to contact people on the street, and to knock on doors, but it also needs to be as directed by the spirit. We talked to quite a few people, and most of them turned us down, but for some reason, I just felt so good to contact them and to tell them things about the gospel and love of god that they probably didn't know about before. I will share 2 experiences. My companion and I have 3 words (no, maybe, and yes) if one of us is (or might be) feeling a contact, they look at the other and say a word. The other elder then responds with a word as well. We contacted a family that was walking on the street (mom, dad, 2 daughters) we expressed our message, and to our surprise, they responded "we are actually already taking your lessons" WHAT?! I respond "what are the elders names?" They respond "I don't know, but they are..... JEHOVA'S WITNESSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" We kindly explained that we are not the jehova's witnesses and we also explained eternal families, and a little about the pre-existance. They said that we could come by sometime, and we are probably going to call them today to see when we can visit. The other, we walk by 2 women taht are just sitting talking in the street. Elder Chico doesn't really even look at me, but he says "yes" and just walks up to them. He introduces us and goes into a family topic and the comfort of truly having a plan from god in our lives. The woman gave us a couple of different answers to questions and we could see in her eyes that she wasn't happy, and that she was probably having family troubles. She said we could come visit her on tuesday at 7!!!!!!! So excited! Elder Chico and I pray so much to feel what people we should talk to in the street, and we are starting to have success, poco a poco (little by little).
Ok, so another thing. I no longer speak english. It's actually kind of sad. Elder Juarez (nephew) really wants to learn english to be abl to go to BYU, and when he asked me to talk to him in english on Sunday, I COULDN'T.... I was stumbling in my sentence structure, and was speaking about half english with the other half spanish. Also, when I teach Elder Chico spanish, I forget what words are in english... I just find it easier to speak spanish now, even to the white people. I jsut figured "hey, only have 2 years to lose myself in the culture. I can learn english the rest of my life". But I am truly loving the people, the food, and everything that this country has to offer. The only thing I still struggle with a little bit is to try to plan to visit everyone.
ok, so my mom will have already read this when you all start reading it, and she is probably freaking out, but, I have auschter-slaughter in my left knee. I went in to doctor herrera (head mission-doctor for the country of mexico) and he felt it, and heated it for about half an hour. He then told me i was good. I got down, and told him, that it still hurts when I do a squat and stuff, and I want it to be back to normal. He disappears for a second and comes back with the biggest needle I have ever seen in my entire life! probably almost 2 inches long! I started freaking out cause I thought it was cortazon. He told me to relax and that it would fix not only the auschter-slaughter, but also fix my ligaments and muscles. I still didn't want it, but I truly trust him, especially cause he is in my ward and he is awesome. My companions elder chico had to sit on my foot as my leg was bent and i laid on the bed. The doctor put half of the shot in one side, half in the other, and in the week, my auschter-slaughter will be gone and I will be perfectly healthy again. but I can honestly say it was one of the worst shots of my life, I look and ALL OF THE NEEDLE IS IN MY KNEE!!!!! It felt so weird! Ok, I think that is all almost everything.
WE HAVE A BAPTISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After talking to and teaching Naheli for about a month, we talked to her dad and got permission to baptize her... TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited and truly know that we did absolutely nothing, but the Lord truly let us have this opportunity, and for that, I am FOREVER GRATEFUL!
Finally, I can honestly tell you guys that I have never prayed so sincerely, humbly, and frequently in my entire life. I pray probably 10 or more times a day, and then even more times with Elder Chico to help us have unity and the spirit to testify in our lessons. I truly felt completely unqualified this week, and just thought that I was too small for this work. I realize now that I was completely right... But that's the point. I truly testify that God does not put us into positions that we are ready for, but does put us in positions that he knows we are able to fulfill. I will share a very personal experience with you all. So this last thursday, we didn't work because it was The virgin guadelupe day, and we aren't allowed to be out on the streets because there is an ENORMOUS group of people that walk all the streets saying rosaries, and if they see us, well... they don't like us.... But we are all good, and I hope none of you are too worried right now. But we got to chill in the house, I made pancakes, we played boardgames with the district, and just kind of got to hang out for a day. I don't know why, but the realization of inadequecy hit me like a 1000 tons of bricks. I felt aweful. I really just wanted to go somewhere and cry. I just took a nap cause I didn't want to do anything else. I expressed my feelings to elder Chico that night when we planned, and the first thing he did was hug me. I also sat down and opened my scriptures in english. You guys know when a book opens because it has papers or something in that spot? well, that's exactly what happened. I opened to ether 12:27 (which is highlighted in red with a picture) I read it: "I give unto men weaknesses that they may be humble..., but through me, their weaknesses shall be made strong". I got another feeling that made me want to cry and tears started to bead in my eyes. I truly was hit with the even greater realizations that God is watching out for me; he knows that I am struggling, but he also knows that, with his help, I can truly help Elder Chico and fulfill my calling as a trainer.
I have already grown so much after this last week. God truly does know, love, care about, and love each and every one of us. Sometimes we won't recieve an answer as direct as I recieved, but if we pay attention to the details, we will find that the lord's hand is truly working everyday in our lives. I know that this church is true, and I can truly testify that god will prepare and support those that he calls. The power of the scriptures and pray are everything. They truly are a direct connection to god, and to answers and love.
I love you all, and hope you have an incredible week! The work will move forward! Be a part of it!
Love Elder Nathan Norr
No comments:
Post a Comment