Week 79: Adventure is Out There!‏

It was an interesting week. A good sort of kickoff to a great-looking change. We had a lot of adventures this week in the service of the lord....but what I've learned is that when you're on the service of the Lord....adventure is hardly uncommon.

In fact, "Adventure is out There" it's knocking on your front door, waiting to carry you off to far, unknown and undiscovered places the spirit of curiosity sustaining your feet. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of discovery, a gospel of beginnings and adventure, the scriptures themselves contain some of the very greatest stories ever told, and it teaches us that if we are on the lord's side, he will always see us through and always give us the power that we need to succeed.

That's what I learned today, when Elder Craig C. Christensen of the presidency of the 70 came to visit our mission and the missionaries of the CCM. He told the story of when he was a mission president in Mexico, he went to the house of a new missionary and his trainer.

Before he was even able to get out of the car, the new missionary came sprinting out the front door, and with a frenzied sort of look told his president that he couldn't do this anymore. "I can't learn the language!" He cried, "I can't understand anyone! I don't like the food that they give me! I can't ever be a good missionary!"

When many missionary presidents in circumstances would resort to just comforting the poor soul and telling him to have patience and everything will turn out all right, Elder Christensen said something that surprised even himself.

"You're right Elder," He said, " You can't do it."

After letting the shock settle in he continued, "You can't do it without the help of the Lord. Alone, you can't ever learn a new language, or enjoy the food or be a good missionary....but with him you CAN do all of those things."

It helped me to think about what he said. And how much help I have received from the Lord through difficult experiences. 

God is perfectly capable of moving his work forward without any of us but he gives us all the opportunity to learn and grow as we serve him.

This week was interesting then. As stated, today in the morning we had a MultiMission Conference in Montufar with the area Presidency, Elder Christensen and Elder Anderson. I was able to see a lot of good friends at the conference, past companions, old Zone Leaders and great buddies that I've had through all of my adventures here in Guatemala.

There was the change meeting on Tuesday, but we didn't go because we didn't have changes. Instead, Elder Chunga and I went from lesson to lesson, tearing it up in Panorama. By the end of the day we had taught 7! And we also went to go and say goodbye to Javier, a member of our ward who left on his mission the next day. It was a really busy day but we were left very satisfied by the end.

The next day Elder Chunga and I had divisions with the Traveling AP's of the South Mission: Elder Bento and Elder O'Very. I went with Elder Bento to part of our area while our companions attended to all of the planned lessons.

We tried to find something to do in our weakest sector,  receiving references, knocking on doors and just working really hard.

Elder Bento taught me how to look for all of the miracles that we saw in an almost unfruitful day and helped me to change my perspective. It was very insightful. 

The next day they told us that they really enjoyed the divisions that we had gone on and gave us some really great compliments.

So...really everything has gone really good this week.

There's a lot that I still have to learn but I feel like I'm on the right track!

Hope you all have a good week!