Week 2: Blessings of Faith

President and Sister Morris of the Guatemala CCM

SO, this week has been a roller coaster with some pretty scary stuff and some spiritually high days. My P-Days are really chill we have until 4:30 p.m. to play sports nap and clean our rooms. Usually around 11 a.m. our time we get to email (at least until next week then it changes.)

Last, Thursday was rough! We felt the freedom of P-day and pretty much got thrown back in the fire the next day. It was a tough day and didn´t help that I assigned us to clean the Elder’s bathroom on Thursdays. (nice guy, right!)

 Friday was really nice, I had a good time with my practice investigator and we learned a lot. Saturdays, too, are always exciting because we get to gear up for Sundays. (Think of Sundays as regular church days but Sunday school is us giving practice lessons.) In sacrament, we have to have a 5-minute talk prepared -no more no less- or we give another next week. It Really teaches you to manage your time, huh!?

I really loved Monday, it was a really spiritual day and I had an amazing lesson in Spanish. It was all Spanish, I stopped looking for the words I wanted and found replacements, I got my investigator to agree to read the book of Mormon and to allow us back! Elder Meek still struggles but he prays like a beast
and he is able to testify and explain through a lot of study throughout the day. Sadly, though, today he hit his head on a hook and got a little cut.

Now to the scary stuff. I had a hard time praying on Monday night and there were noises coming from the other room and suddenly the spirit I was feeling left. Many of the Americans say they heard some pretty weird stuff in the Latinos room; so, we got together and kneeled in prayer. It was a struggle, words wouldn´t come to us at first; but we were finally able to offer a simple prayer. Immediately in closing our prayer we felt the spirit again. Elder Solomon got up and commanded the feeling to disperse and allow the spirit back!!!  SO, Monday night was CRAZY!! I feel so strongly that this experience truly testifies that what we are doing and learning isn’t wanted by the adversary.

Tuesday, it gets better, we talked to president Morris (who is a real sweetheart by the way, he is always there for his companion with tissues in their devotionals) and he agreed to watch over the hallway all night!!! and last night was the best sleep I had in the CCM.

I am so excited to see Kollin and be an example like the three-weekers (as we call them) have been for me. I got pranked for the first time right after I emailed you guys, it was really good. So, the phones here have a button that can be pushed to make them ring. I didn’t know they were only for used for calling and couldn’t receive any calls. So the other Elders pushed the button, and it rang, and they pretended President wanted me for something. I hurried and got dressed. Admittedly, I was freaking out a bit because Elder Solomon had broken 4 CHAIRS in the first week. I thought he was calling me for that! Then when I walked out, the phone rang again and they said it was a prank! I still get teased about it.

The language comes really easy now and it’s crazy how much I´ve had my testimony strengthened so much by all the devotionals. I am so excited to go and teach the people of Honduras. I got a taste of the dialect from one of the teachers and I couldn´t understand a word, which kind of scared me but made me think of the people all the more. I was actually excited to hear the language even though I couldn’t understand it, they skip the “s” in their words and there are a lot of “s´s” in the Spanish language.

My teachers are great and I most likely will have to sing “As Sister’s in Zion” today or tomorrow; because, I let some English slip when I was in a practice lesson and some study time, so I´m just waiting for the call to do it. I Had my first fast and testimony meeting here and it was really spiritual too. We have 1 minutes to bear a testimony, and all the three-weekers got up. I hope all keeps working out the way it has and I can be pretty good at the language when I leave. I love the gospel and I actually am growing to love my time in the CCM. Although it’s a grind the first week, when you find a groove you can really enjoy it. And the groove gets deeper as I learn more and more. I think of the CCM as a small log and I have to cut through it to get to big open field that is my mission.

I have some cool pictures of Elder Billes, he´s going to be a defensive end for Utah when he gets back and he´s massive! His forearm is like the size of my calf!!! Long story short, some Latinos took some shampoo and Billes was helping his district leader investigate!

Love this gospel and all of you guys, was able to feel the power of the Priesthood and the blessings of faith as I saw some of my blessing from President Gardner come true in my life. I got kind of discouraged and said a prayer and it felt like I was getting hugged by you guys at the airport, it was so comforting. I put my head back down and thanked Heavenly Father for that blessing and got back to work on the lesson that soon turned into the most spiritual one I´ve had!! It was the best lesson I had and the spirit was so strong we taught the restoration and I swear you could cut the spirit with a knife. It was so physically powerful that after that experience I can´t deny that this gospel isn´t true and that we as missionaries are called of God. I Love this work and my district.