I
would be lying if I said that this week was as uneventful as the last. I would
also be lying if I told you that I can`t speak a lick of Spanish.
BECAUSE
I CAN!!
...or
at least, the spirit can... This week I gained a testimony of the power of the
gift of tongues. Let me set the stage for you: It`s Saturday evening and my
district is doing an exercise on finding the investigator`s needs and helping
them to work through their problems. It was missionary teaching missionary and
I was up to bat first. As I spoke, the words came naturally albeit the
elementary knowledge I have of the language as a whole. When I knew I was on
the right track to discovering my investigator (Elder Barlow, a football player
from Sandy Utah)`s needs I could spout off Spanish like a fire-hose...but when
I started to go off on irrelevant tangents it was like I wasn`t physically able
to say the words. The lesson went awesome and I was able to decipher that his
problem was around the topic of us having Latter Day Prophets.
So
that`s a thing! The gift of tongues is real and the Church is true!
What
else...oh!
Every
Sunday during sacrament meeting at the CCM they choose people at random to give
talks during the meeting. Everyone prepares a talk on the same topic but only a
handful actually have to give it...it`s like Russian Roulette for Missionaries.
So there I was, sitting in my seat trying to act as invisible as humanly
possible. In the 20 minutes before church started I had scraped together a
fairly bare-bones talk on Repentance with a few scriptures and some jokes in
Spanish sprinkled in. I had been successful in evading any opportunity to speak
in the meetings previously but this time....alas...after we sang the
intermediate Hymn the Branch President stood up and announced that we would be
pleased to hear from Elder Monson.
Once
again, my testimony of the gift of tongues was strengthened tenfold!
And
last but not least, I got to see the City this week. And not just to Wal-Mart
and back again, last Tuesday all the nortemericanos in the CCM trekked to the
heart of the city, to Zone 1. Before anything we were privileged to see a 99%
accurate topographical (I think that`s the word for it....) map of the entire
country and President Nicoliason explained to us the speculative significance
of each part of the country according to Book of Mormon history. The most
accepted theory is that Guatemala is the setting for which the events of the
Book of Mormon take place. Later on in the week I went through my Book of
Mormon and highlighted every time it said that the Gospel would be taken to the
Lamanites...because that`s what I get to do!
After
the map we were taken to a market full of touristy things, it was a place where
you could get anything you wanted for...pretty much any price you want if you
know how to barter correctly. it felt like a Labrynth with shops at every
possible outlet and a food market down stairs (going down there was the single
strangest experience of my life...it was like I was in a dream...but with a lot
of food I wasn´t allowed to eat)...And when it came time to return to the bus I
really felt like I had gotten a taste of the culture...but sadly, not a taste
of the fantastic looking food.
And
that´s about it for today! I´m not sure when I`m going to be able to write next
week because I leave the CCM Tuesday morning!
....so
that´s both terrifying and exciting...
Elder Tyler Monson
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