Week 6

Hola Todos,

This past week, I'd been trying to be like Jesus, but I'll get to that in a minute.  I first want to celebrate the fact that I'm officially in the field.  As such, my P-days have been moved to Monday, so you can expect my emails around now from now on.  

I said that I was trying to be like Jesus this week, and when I say this, I want to focus on Christ's obedience.  As I mentioned in my last email I accepted a challenge to only speak Spanish for my last week of the MTC.  Later on Wednesday though, my district and on other district that had arrived at the same time decided to perform a special musical number in half English and half Spanish.  The expectation was that everyone would sing half in English and half in Spanish.  I immediately said that I would be unable to sing in English, and offered to sing entirely in Spanish, as the entire group needed help with that part.  This idea was initially denied, and so I declined to participate.  

That made a lot of people mad.  One of the other missionaries decided that my judgment was off, and asked me to pray about what I should do.  Thinking that no harm could come from prayer, I followed his advice.  As soon as I started to pray that night, the thought came into my head that I already knew the answer to this. And then I was reminded of a talk the Elder Holland gave at an MTC devotional.  In it he said that we need to become out first converts to the Lord.  The spirit then asked me, what kind of investigators do I want to have?  Do I want investigators that will keep their commitments and obey God all of the time, or do I want them to just do it when it's convenient.  So long story short, I made a lot of other people mad again the next day.  It got bad enough that my companion took me in to seek couple's counseling.

But then after the trial of my faith, miracles started to happen.  For one, the promise that I would understand the language better was made manifest in my online assessment score.  I scored 28% higher than I had on the practice test just a few days before.  Secondly, my mission president got wind of what was happening, and spoke to the leaders of the two districts.  I'm not entirely sure of what happened behind closed doors, but the next thing I knew, everyone recognized that we needed more Spanish singers, and then President Bennett was commending me for my dedication to learning Spanish.  I guess the moral of the story is, after every trial of faith, miracles are brought to pass.  In the words of Thomas S Monson "may we always choose the hard right instead of the easier wrong."   

I'll try to write more about the field next week.  It's just hard to describe a place when you have only been there for on day and spent the entire time inside a church building

Elder Gooden

Pictures from the Mexico City Temple before he left the CCM

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A few extras from Mom and Dad's email -

Companion's names is Elder Casey

When we asked if he needed anything he said dry ice because it is "as hot as it can get here"

"The apartment has no drinkable water, I have a single AC system in the bedroom, and I haven't tried the bed yet.  Right now I'm drinking powerade, and I've been given a bottle filter that can make sewage drinkable."