Well family, it´s really unbelievable. You have officially shaken me up. Reached the core of me. You reminded me that, within a few weeks of being home, I´d be back at BYU. I can´t say if the dominating feeling was fear or excitement, but I would say the former was sufficiently strong. I love the thought, but it terrifies me at the same time. How weird am I gonna be. I need an UnMTC, lots of rated action movies and college football, yeah... That´s what I need.
All talk of home aside for now, I´ve gotta report on how our week has been. I wasn´t kidding around when I said I was gonna explode here in Bonao, we have worked harder than I ever have on the mission. We have literally been to the four corners of our area looking for old investigators with a surprising amount of success. We´re also tracted a ton. My companion has expressed to me a lot how his legs hurt him a lot, how he immediately falls asleep when he hits the pillow, and it brings me such joy. Ha he´ll get stronger as we go, but he was a little bit discouraged.. And I admit, I was too. That is, until monday..
I prayed for a miracle leaving the apartment that day, we got two. The first was Luis Antonio, he´s a kid that´s 15 years old that we´re teaching. He´s a good kid, but plays baseball sunday, so we had a great lesson built around trying to get him to quit playing on sunday for church. We didn´t need to use it.. He quit anyway. We put a date with him for the 29th of october.
Fast-forward a couple hours later. We are teaching an old investigator of ours. He expressed to us his discouragement with life, what he was going through with his economic and family struggles, and how he was just not at ease. We shared DandC 121:7 with him, and no one in the room didn´t have tears. Then we offered him a priesthood blessing, in which my comp timidly annointed him, using his best spanish, and I sealed it. It was so powerful. After ward he asked us, ¨when can I get baptized,¨ to which we responded, ¨the 29th of October.¨
Then, yesterday we taught a young man and set another date of baptism for him, also for the 29th. We have 3 planned already. I´m hoping they all go through.
It´s been a crazy week. I´ve learned a ton, including that the Lord really does recognize and bless that that work in his work.
Ok, now for the news from conference. ANOTHER TEMPLE IN PROVO! That´s so exciting. Now everyone won´t have to wait so dang much because of the massive crowds of people. And it really was neat to see Pres. Monson so laughy and jokey, he´s such a jolly old man. I figure with such a sure knowledge as he has of the plan of salvation it´s impossible NOT to be happy. Still, it´s really cool.
Thanks for sending the list of things, including more OU stuff. It´s much needed. All I have are those sandals and the OU texas ticket. I´ve been wanting more. You read my mind. Or maybe you´re just my dad..
What else.. I think that´s about it. My new missionary is such a good kid. We are always laughing but working, and people take notice. It´s infectious, they want what we have.
Tomorrow.. I hit a year. I repeat it, and I´m done. I can´t believe how fast it´s gone at times, and I can´t believe how slow it´s dragged by at others. It´s a marvel, time. Especially time in the mission. It´s like a mini-life outside of real-life. You´re born, you live, and go through ups and downs, then you die and go to the spirit world (I figure Utah is the spirit world for a lot of dying missionary souls).
I´m proud of Cameron. He´s hanging in there in the hardest part of his mission. He says the smog makes him sick a lot.. It´s rough. And I imagine he doesn´t understand much. That may be rougher. I hated that at first. My comp is going through it too. I have really realized how for I have come in my spanish with him, he´s a lot like me when I was born. Very.. Clumsy broken spanish. Just a whole lot of listening.
Elder Kimball, my comp from the MTC, just called and congratulated me and I congratulated him on getting to a year. It´s smooth sailin from here on out. Wait... I´ve gotta knock on wood.
I think I´m just about done.. Oh in other news, golf is aparently not allowed in the mission....... So that´s a bummer. I was definitely gonna do it for a year and for elder johnson, who also plays golf, as well as another trainer in this zone named Elder Thiel, and a zone leader named Elder Cromwell. It would have been a blast.. and actually Elder Cromwell is gonna talk to Pres. Lee to see if we can just do it once.
I love you too. It´s so surreal that I will be seeing you two in a year. Now I´m counting down instead of up.
Be safe, I´ll talk to you in just a couple months over skype,
Elder Sweeney
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