September Letters

September 20, 2011



Two Sundays ago (9/11) one of the members of the stake presidency asked me if I could help with the translation for stake conference. Usually, I would think about it but I had the prompting just to say yes without thinking. The next week I kind of forgot that I was going to translate until Saturday. So, like I always do, I started cramming. I was on Spanish overload. I was studying anything in Spanish that I could get my hands on. But during all this, the thought was in the back of my mind, "Why did you say yes so

fast?” So Saturday night came around and when I said my personal prayers I pleaded with the Lord to help me the next day and keep me calm and help me to convey the spirit of the message to the Spanish people listening. I felt an overwhelming since of happiness after I prayed and when I got into bed I just knew everything was going to be ok. Then Sunday morning, I started freaking out again and was studying like crazy and right before we left to conference, I asked some elders for a blessing. So we went to conference and we were there for the last part of the English session. I got to hear the stake president's talk and it was about the life Joseph Smith and he was using some words that I had no idea how to translate. After it was over, I went to talk with the member of the stake presidency who asked me to translate and I asked him who I would be translating for and he smiled and told me, the stake president. I was floored. I thought that there was no way I could translate for him. So the meeting started and I was scared the entire time. During the talk before the stake president's I began to pray and before I even started, I heard a voice in my head saying, "Don’t worry Ross, I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. I told you that I would help you, just have confidence." I was like"uh..ok!" So needless to say, I got up and only messed up once in the translation. I was pretty amazed, not in myself, but in the Lord. Afterwards, one of the members of the Spanish Branch came up to me and told me how good I did and he said that while I was translating he felt proud that I was doing it and that I was his missionary. It was an awesome experience that I’ll always remember.



But back to my first question, "Why did I say yes so fast without doubting?" I realized later Sunday afternoon, in a lesson we were having, that the reason that I agreed without thinking was because my Spanish needed to improve. I had kind of become relaxed with my Spanish and not studying it that much. But I learned numerous new words and other things while studying and my Spanish is improving again..pretty cool.



Well that’s about it...hahah pretty crazy week! Thanks for everything! I LOVE YALL!!!!





September 13, 2011



So yeah...I SURVIVED THE SAN DIEGO BLACKOUT OF 2011! Me and my comp left our apartment and the lights where still working. Our fans were all running and everything was good. We got in our car and when we got to the street light, it started blinking. Then we started visiting people, and everyone was saying they had lost power. The we started getting texts from other missionaries saying power was down everywhere...all the way to New Mexico. Some people in our area thought it was the end of the world and that everyone was going to burn hahaha. Pres Clayton sent all the missionaries home early and so we chilled in our apartment basically the entire night. People in our area were going a little crazy, we heard police sirens all night. The little Mexican market by our house was robbed and the police had to come and guard it...that was pretty crazy! the power ended up coming back on at like 130 or so for us. We went to sleep at like 1030 or so...it was pretty hot.



So this week...we had a pretty cool experience with one of our investigators. We talked to her and used to visit her like 2 months ago, but for one reason or another we lost contact. But for the past month or so, I’ve been thinking a lot about her and feeling like we needed to visit her. So we went and saw her last Friday and had a pretty good talk. Then we stopped by yesterday and she told us that she had been praying for help with her family and asking God if He was there and when she was done praying, we knocked on the door (last Friday). She started crying and bore a strong testimony that God does answer prayers and how she knows now that he really does exist and loves her. It was another testimony builder for me to know that God works through us and that even though I had been thinking about her for awhile, God told when I needed to talk to her. It was kind of like him telling me that he was preparing her and that he would let me know when the time was right, and he did....pretty cool.



So yeah, that was basically my week. The lesson I realized this week, was that if we take a step back and allow God to help us in our struggles, we will be able to overcome them a lot easier and we will see the blessings in our struggles. Not that I am struggling with anything major or anything like that, but I’m a missionary, the past 2 years have been a struggle. When I just think about my problems and try to handle them myself, I don’t really learn. But if I ask God to help me understand the lessons to be learned in my problems and challenges, I see the lessons and I see the blessings and understand why I need to go through those trials.



Well I hope everyone is doing good. Tell everybody hi for me and spread the word....ROOS LITTLE IS COMING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS!!! LOVE YOU!!!!!!!





September 6, 2011



We had a good week. Another baptism!!!!haha We went over to our recent convert's house to talk to the mom about how things were going and she said that her boyfriend had left and she wanted to be baptized, but she didn’t know when because she was going through a lot. I told her to talk to our branch pres. and he would help her know what to do. The next night we got a call from Pte Lopez telling us that she was getting baptized on Saturday and that he knew we could handle the rest hahah so yeah, we had another baptism on Saturday and then we had 4 confirmations on Sunday. Overall, pretty good week!



The lesson I remembered this week was that sometimes as members of the church we grow comfortable with the amount of faith that we have. I kind of fell back into the trap of doing the work my way again this past week, but I’m starting to come out of it and put it back into the Lord's hands. That is definitely hard, because he asks a lot. I've been absolutely exhausted some nights and on the way home when I get a prompting to go see someone. It is the Lord's way of saying, "What are you going to do? take the easy way and go home, or take that one little step more and keep going?" It is definitely hard to keep going, but somehow I make it through. When we push ourselves to the edge and then go a little further, the blessings will come and we will be rewarded for our efforts.