This week I've been trying to be like President Myres, more on that later though. This week was in a word, long. My first two weeks here were met with a lot of success. We found in those two weeks, 31 new investigators, many of them had accepted the invitation to be baptized, and I thought, ya. I'm an awesome missionary. Give me another transfer or two here and I'll baptize the entire town! Maybe my pride got to me a little bit, because this week we found hardly anyone to teach, all of the appointments with the progressing investigators fell, and it was hot all week long. One of our investigators did get married though, so that´s always good.
On the bright side, my companion and I have started eating healthier and we've learned that it's possible to live off of about ten dollars a week for food. Beans, tortillas, and eggs go a long way. And then if we want to add a little bit of flavor we have tomato and onion to add with it.
This doesn't mean that I've stopped enjoying the abundance of coke in this country. On Saturday, in honor of my ability to chug water so quickly, my companion decided that I should chug a liter of coke. If anyone knows what the world record is for that tell me. Right now I can do it in 47 seconds. With a bit of practice though, I bet I get I can get it down to about 15. Dealing with carbonation though is a bit different than plain water.
As I said, I've been trying to be like President Myers, or rather, the missionary that he wants me to be. One of the things that he has tasked for every missionary to do is memorize the Living Christ and share it during lessons. For those of you who don´t know, the Living Christ is a church document that was published seventeen years ago to commemorate the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Christ. Contained with in is a summary of his life, the meaning that it has for all of us, and the promise that one day He will return to rule and reign over the earth as it´s king. The fun thing for me though, is that I had to learn it in Spanish. Speaking the language is one thing. Learning how to memorize something and to say it with meaning is another.
I started back in August, when I still barely had enough command of the language to teach in the lessons, but now, as of this past Saturday, I've been able to memorize all of it. Believe me though, it was one of the harder tings to do on my mission. Especially when I had Spanish speaking companions that some times made fun of my pronunciation or on accident said another word. There was one time I tried to say it and ended up saying that Christ died for our fishes instead of our sins. At the end of it though, President Myers was right in saying that memorizing this sacred document would bring us closer to God and give us a better understanding of the sacrifice that our Savior made for all of us.
This week, I want to invite everyone to read the Living Christ and think for yourselves what the sacrifice of our Savior means for you personally. Think about what his death and resurrection mean in your life, and pray to find our how you can improve that relationship and feel more of his loving influence in your life.
That's all for now
Elder Gooden
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