Week 4

Dang it seems like I've been here for FOREVER! Seriously, everyone in our district says it seems like we've been here for 4 months instead of 4 weeks. I guess it's because we do so much every day. When I write in my journal at night, I can't even remember what we did in the morning cuz the days are so long. It's not bad though. I've learned so much already. I guess I'm gonna go with the quick list format again cuz it's a lot easier.

1. We taught this lady from Mexico at the TRC yesterday, and she talked SO FAST! My companion and I should have asked her a lot more to slow down because I think we only understood like 60% of what she was saying. I'm still at that point where I'm translating Spanish back into English while people are talking, so I was always like 2 sentences behind what she was saying haha. But it was still a decent lesson. We probably didn't teach to needs as well as we should have though since we didn't catch all of what she said. Experiences like these make me realize how far I have to go to be able to understand the Honduran people.

2. We had our best lesson by far with Ariel (role played by our teacher Hermano Davis) on Wednesday. We had a rough outline of a lesson, but decided to switch it up halfway through after asking some questions and listening to the spirit. Obviously, it turned out to be a good move. Our Spanish wasn't anything special, but the Spirit was so strong as we bore testimony that Ariel could find an answer to his questions through prayer. It was such a powerful lesson that Ariel prayed without any hesitation at the end of our lesson, which was a real sticking point for all of the other companionships. After the lesson, Hermano Davis told us to write everything down that we did to make it such a powerful lesson. It just strengthened my testimony that we don't have to have perfect Spanish skills to have a good lesson. Teaching by the spirit is definitely the most important thing to do.

3. So I've had a couple run-ins with my district leader this week, which probably isn't so good. I guess that's bound to happen when you're around each other for pretty much the whole day. He's a good guy, but we just have totally different approaches with teaching, leadership, and basically everything. I'm becoming such good friends with everyone in my district though, including Elder Walbeck, the district leader. Elder Hebert and I especially, just seem to be on the same page pretty much all the time. Hopefully I keep getting awesome companions like him.

4. So in the bad news of the week, it turns out the scale wasn't wrong. I somehow weigh 180. It's all muscle, of course, but I'm disappointed all the same. But since I realized that on Monday, I've started running. Elder Hebert and I also have a friendly competition every day because we're always within a pound of each other. I've won 2 out of 3 days so far! Hopefully, I can keep it up haha

5. Gym story of the week: I pretty much had the most amazing 2 games of basketball ever yesterday. Seven 3-pointers and a layup, which I think is pretty solid. And that was after running 2 miles too, so it was definitely a good gym day. I didn't play any more Four Square this week though- basketball is just way more fun.

6. Thanks to everyone who wrote me letters this last week! It's awesome to hear what's going on outside of the MTC. I might have even come close to beating Elder Hebert at who got more letters.

7. Since I make everything into a competition, I guess I'll share one more story. During class yesterday, 4 guys in our district decided to see how long we could keep a tic-tac in our mouth. Surprisingly, the record is now an hour and 45 minutes! So if anyone beats that, let me know. My personal record is only an hour and fifteen minutes if you want an easier mark to beat :)

Ok I've already gone over my alloted time for e-mail, so I should probably get off before the MTC police come. Hope all of you have a great week! Stay safe and start buying Christmas presents! Take it from an expert, it's never good to procrastinate. Nos vemos!