Well, this week, I got to know my companion´s name and all of that. His name is Elder Lauritzen, he´s from Conneticut(I think I spelled that right), and he has about three weeks here in Mexico. He also arrived late from the MTC due to problems with the visa, but he did arrive two weeks before changes. So he was with one of the Zone Leaders for two weeks in Puerta Grande(sound familiar?) So yeah, I've basically adopted him as my son(in the mission, of course), but it is a really interesting experience having an American son....it almost never happens. However, his spanish is already really good, in fact he knows the names of many objects better than I do...which made me realize that I need to take out that good old dictionary and do some studying.
It´s funny, many times when I don´t understand words in the scriptures, I look it up in the dictionary, only to find that I don't know what the word means in English either. So I might have to invest in a spanish dictionary, because the Spanish-English dictionary doesn't always help me as well as I would like.
Yeah, but being American, I had to put my foot down and tell him we weren´t going to speak in English. But, he seemed totally okay with that. I thought it would be hard because of the lack of ability in Spanish, but he does understand and speak pretty well. However, that said, one time in the Comida I decided that I wasn´t going to talk to the members, that my companion had gotten comfortable hearing me talk and not saying anything himself. So it was a very silent conversation, and I wanted to talk to the members so bad, but I couldn't. However, I think he's realized that and he's working harder on that.
Well, the work goes on. It's something really interesting, teaching with someone with limited use of the language. People actually listen to my companion more than they listen to me, because it's a lot harder to understand him, and they have to pay more attention(haha, I'm asking my companion to help me with my English, I had no idea how to say that sentence). Also, we knocked on some doors, and I realized that the people are more honest with him than they are with me. We knocked on the doors, and they told him "I´m really not interested sorry, but thanks for your time." But when it was my turn to make the contact, they said "Not right now, but some other day." I would then make an appointment with them, to which they readily agreed to, and then we would return for the appointment and.....no one! So there are a lot of blessings with the fact that my companion is harder to understand.
This week we worked hard, but we had very little fruits. However, what I love about my companion is that he came to work, and hasn't lost sight of that. He doesn't get discouraged, which encourages me to improve myself in my attitude. This week, we weren't able to obtain any references, and we had a lot of appointments fall on us, but I know that our efforts were organized and diligent, and I have no doubt that the fruits will come if we continue working like this. I'm actually starting to see some fruits already, this ward is beginning to trust us more. I don't know how many times yesterday the brothers and sisters talked to us about how they had seen us in the street talking to someone, and how they loved seeing us working.
So, I believe that we'll have more success this week. It'll be interesting working on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, already, we've see some people try to avoid setting appointments for this week due to the holidays, but we just have to keep working on it, because the miracles only come by faith...and faith means we have to ACT!! For example, if we believe that God answers prayers, but we never pray....what happens? Nothing! And this faith begins to die slowly because we can't obtain a testimony if we haven't lived it. So we have to have faith that work brings miracles....and then we have to WORK!
Well, that's basically it for this week. I hope you all have a great Christmas and that you remember why we celebrate this day. I can't remember who said it but someone once said "there wouldn't be a Christmas if it weren't for Easter."
Thank you all for everything. Please continue praying for my companion and me. We need those prayers.
Cariños,
Elder Blackham
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment