Hey Momma!!
This week was a biggun! So last p-day I didn't write it
in my email but I had just started to feel like we were not working
hard enough as a district. I was learning Portuguese well, but I couldn't
help but feel like it wasn't as good as it could be. Then that night right
as the teacher was getting ready to leave, I was just talking with her
and she started telling me how she felt the same way. She expressed how
it hurt her that we were speaking in English during class because WE are
the people with the black name tags. WE are the people with the
priesthood authority and a Call to serve from the prophet, yet we were
living below our privileges. As she said this she started crying and
this conversation was just between me and her but the class got quiet
real fast. She left right after and no body knew what happened.
I
explained what she had been telling me and then talked about how I've
felt the same way and think we need to be doing a lot more than we were.
About half the district felt EXACTLY how I did and wanted to be doing
things differently, and the other half didn't see anything wrong with it
and said it was necessary to talk and goof off if we wanted to stay sane
in the CTM. We had a good long talk and everyone came to a pretty good
understanding of how people were feeling so we decided on some things to
change. It has made a HUGE difference this week!!
After
that I was really excited to get studying , but about Sunday I was
still feeling like I could be doing more. As I was writing in my journal
that night, I wrote down how I was feeling and just wrote that I was
going to pray to try and figure things out. Right then I felt I just
needed to open a letter Ashley had written me. On the envelope it said
'' open on the day and time the spirit tells you''. Inside was her
favorite talk "What lack I yet". It was perfect!!! Through reading and
studying that talk I learned that I needed to be spending more effort
on reading my scriptures and the words of the prophets. I thought it was
kinda weird because I was thinking about the language but I have had
some amazing personal studies this week!!
I was spending some personal
study time before writing and translating lessons or looking up vocab I
was going to need for a lesson that day. I have enjoyed personal study
so much since I stopped that and have learned some amazing things!! I
barely have any time to prepare my lessons now so, I just write a super
rough outline in English then go for it. Since I've done this the
quality of my lessons has gone through the roof!!! Because I have
nothing in Portuguese everything I say is formed on the spot and I'm not
bound to some pre planned lesson I made. I can just follow the spirit as
directed and I've been changing the flow and adding random scriptures
that I read during personal study that mesh perfectly!! When I use that
time to obtain the word than when the time comes that I need to share
it, I am given everything I need to say. I always felt like I didn't have
enough of a vocab to teach these lessons how I want but I'm given all
the words I need when I do it right!! And I feel like I can finally be
myself when I'm not trying to teach a pre scripted lesson. That's why the
lessons are the way they are now!! I love this stuff!!!!
At the same time all that was going on I got another fun surprise. It's
gotten kinda warm here (it's really actually super nice. The Utah boys
can't handle the heat) so they wanted to sleep with the window open last
week. I started feeling super crappy on Thursday and went to the doctor Friday when it got really bad. And guess what !!! I've been in Brazil for
a month and got ZIKA!! Not really, I lied. And the window doesn't have
anything to do with this. Utah boys are heat wimps though. That's true. I
just got a super nasty cold. I took two different decongestants (not
together. Don't worry mom) and afrin and something the CTM doctor said
would kill it fast. Nothing even touched it!! I'm doing good now but I
thought I was going to die for a few days there. It has now infected 7
out of 10 in the district. Some people got it a lot easier than others,
and half the CTM has it. It's craziness down here!!
Unfortunately I don't have many cool stories other than just what I learn
since I'm still in the CTM. Not a whole lot happens besides classes and
my own personal learning stories. Only one more P-day here in the CTM
then I'll be a real missionary!!
Love you all tons!!,
Elder Little
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