Letter from June 21, 2011

June 21, 2011

Hey...tough week....but it refined me and things are getting better

Ninety percent of our teaching is in Spanish. The only person we teach in English is a 19 yr old girl but even then, her boyfriend doesn't speak English so we have to talk to him in Spanish. But yeah, everything is in Spanish. My area is just like something you would see in Mexico.

Well like I said this week was like the refiners fire. I'll relate it to sports. Remember the beginning of my senior year and I lost, what I like to call, my "swagger"? I just felt like I couldn't do it anymore? I just hit rock bottom? That is what happened this week.

Our investigators buffed us, we didn't really accomplish anything, and we had one investigator tell us they didn't want to be baptized anymore. So yeah.....I was humbled. On Friday night, after the night was over, I got on my knees and prayed. For awhile. Then I realized something. I realized that I was trying to do it all by myself. I was trying to do things my way. And the work of the Lord can't be done only by man. Its impossible. You have to be guided by the Lord in order to succeed. These things I was going through was a humbling process. The Lord was helping me realize that I couldn't do it on my own. I needed his help.

So Saturday it was a little better, but it was still the same kind of thing. Sunday was good. We only had 1 investigator show up, but then something happened to turn it all around. Sunday School was just finishing and President Lopez came and asked me if I could translate for the high councilor. I smiled and said, "You want me to translate?" What was going through my head was , "I have trouble translating what I want to say, there is no way that I can translate what someone else is trying to say." He smiled and shook his head, "si". I looked back at him and said, "Si, si quiere". He must have seen the look of doubt on my face and he put his hand on my shoulder said, "Si te puedes." He had confidence in me, but I had 0 confidence in myself. I remember looking around and thinking, "there are tons of people here who are fluent in both languages, why can't they do it?" So Sacrament meeting started and I prayed hard during the sacrament. I prayed for the Lord to help me, to put the words in my mouth, and to give me confidence in myself. So he was the first speaker and we started and it went great. I made a couple of mistakes but I was able to keep up with him and translate without a lot of long pauses or missed words. Wow. It was a powerful spiritual experience! I sat back down and then I just opened up my heart to the Lord for helping me get my "swagger" back.

Yesterday was great. We had some good lessons and our WML asked a lady straight up, "so..why haven't you been baptized yet? Do you want blessings?" The lord humbled me and now things are getting a lot better! It is amazing to see the Lord work in other people's lives but it is even more amazing when you see it in your own lives!

Well that's about it! I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!

Ross