Thursday, September 8, 2011

August 11, 2011...The craziest week of my life for real!

Hey family,

I am rushing to write you something because there is so little time so sorry about the probably not that good of a letter, but I didn´t want to wait until Friday again to write you. This week was change week and Mom you are right, I do have my new companion and he is great. He feels like he is in over his head and doesn´t know why he was picked, but he will learn quickly I can tell. He is bright and will do a good job. I on the other hand am extremely tired but happy that the hard part of the week is finally over. I haven´t woken up after 5:30 for the last 3 days and it is catching up to me. Today I woke up at 3:30 to take some missionaries to the airport. In light of all that I´m trying to catch up on all the work that I missed because we were out and about with the new missionaries and the missionaries that are going home. Mom and Dad you are right, it is slightly more stressful now that I am on my own, but I´m really trying to organize the secretary job with the time that I have because there are so many things that are unorganized. I hope will be able to make everything more simple for Elder Cruz by the time I leave, but we will see how it goes because President is really pushing that the office elders have a lot of baptisms as well as better organization so it is a lot to handle because more time in one thing obviously means less time in another, and these last few days we´ve barely been in the area.
I´m sure you all want to know a bit about Elder Cruz. He is my second companion named Elder Cruz and he is also from Honduras. He is a really funny elder who is here to work hard. He feels really out of place (as I did) because he feels like he should just be out working, finding, contacting, etc. I was talking to him about what to expect in the office, a talk that I would have really appreciated my first week in the office. He mentioned to me that he feels really weird, but that he wants to learn and do a good job. We were also talking about the key to being a good missionary and he said that to him it all comes down to being humble, something that I completely agree with him on. That makes me happy to hear he understands his purpose and why he is here, I know that we will get along really well. He is fairly young in the mission (he has 6 months) and understands english fairly well, it is just hard for him to speak. This will be such a great opportunity for him considering he is living with 4 northamericans, something that I´m sure is a bit of a culture shock. I´m really trying to get the elders in the house to speak spanish if he is even in the room so he doesn´t feel alienated, but I´m sure there´s some things that he just can´t relate to.
I´m very excited about the change. I love having a latin companion. The different culture is always really interesting and I don´t know it just makes the actual work more fun for me. I wonder if there is a reason I have had so many latin companions. It has really taught me a lot about what I have grown up with and how God is no respector of persons; the gospel is for everybody. It doesn´t matter where you are from, who you are, what you´re family situation is, the gospel can change your life. A testimony of the restored church of Christ makes us better, because it gives us hope for something more. It gives us a sense of self worth and real confidence. It is incredible to see the people from terrible backgrounds that overcome all of it and become respectable, great people. I don´t have anymore time to write because I have to go, but I just want to let you know that I´m really being stretched here doing what I´m doing, but it really is helping me to learn to be more patient and calm. It is stressful when things go wrong but it is very gratifying when everything goes as planned. I am really trying to find and teach those who are going to progress and I will write you as soon as I run into somebody that we know will progress. I love you all and hope all is well. Please keep me in your prayers and I will keep you in mine.
-Ben

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