A scar in the shape of a Grammy

January 29, 2022

A scar in the shape of a Grammy

Hi!

I am happy. Life is good. I am feeling so blessed.

I just completed my 2 weeks of Stringham Home MTC and it was a great experience! On Tuesday, I fly to Mexico City and get to complete my training in the physical MTC there! What!?! I am super hyped. Anyways, here is an explanation of how my letters will be organized moving forward. My thoughts and experiences will be divided into 3 sections... GOOD, BETTER and BEST! The GOOD section will have updates about my companions, living situations, transfers and fun stories. In the BETTER section I will share the highlights from any lessons, tender mercies and miracles I saw happen during the week. The BEST section is where I will share a quick spiritual thought! You can pick and choose which sections work for you and actually keep you reading my letters!

So without further ado...

GOOD:

- My companion is Elder Steen! He is from Surprise, Arizona and a super cool kid! We seriously get along so great and work super well together despite only meeting through zoom for the past two weeks. Elder Steen can play basically any instrument you can name and he is good at them all. He also took a legit Spanish class in high school that taught him something (Sorry Mr. Spendlove, love ya man) sooooo he has been my tutor the past few weeks and I am so grateful for that! Another fun fact is that he is 6'6" which gives him just a few inches more than my 5'7"... haha gonna make me feel like a child when I meet him.

- Just a quick plot twist. On Thursday evening Elder Steen started having bad stomach pains and ended up in the hospital. The doctors did a quick surgery to remove his appendix around midnight on Thursday the 27th and since then he has not had the strength to be in class and participate. All I have heard about his surgery is that when he was under anesthesia he spoke fluent Spanish and that he was left with a scar in the shape of a Grammy. He is doing well but obviously still feeling lots of pain and worry. Keep him in your prayers. We are hoping that by some miracle he can make it to Mexico with us.

- My district and teachers are super cool and I have nothing bad to say about any of them. Hermano Cruz, my morning teacher, taught me tons about how to be an effective missionary and my evening teacher, Hermana Lastra, is a hoot but also a great teacher. I never attended her class without laughing at her free spirit and learning more about the Spanish Language.

- I have loved being with my family the past few weeks, they're real gems. Gonna miss beating them in card games and telling them they closed the blinds the wrong direction. They are most definitely going to be lost without me, haha just jokes. I love them tons though!

- Another benefit of being in the home MTC is that I got to go hear Emily give her farewell talk on Sunday! She blew my talk out of the water! I loved listening to her speak, she is gonna be a force to be reckoned with as a missionary! She starts home MTC on Monday and then after 2 weeks joins me in Mexico! Fun how she is following me around for a few more weeks :) Good thing I like her.

BETTER:

- Spanish is hard, however, it is literally crazy to me how good of a teacher the Holy Ghost is. Yes, the language learning assessment does tell me each week that I am still a beginner, but I have grown IMMENSELY the past 2 weeks and in the end that is all that matters right? Let's just say if I was to recreate the attached video, I would at least have correct pronunciation this time. I cannot wait until I can confidently carry a conversation or lesson out in Spanish.

- We actually got to teach some mini lessons to people in Spanish over the course of the last few weeks. Elder Steen and I are the cautious type so after preparing our lessons we spent time writing out a ton of sentences and statements in Spanish so when the time came for the lesson we could just read the appropriate sentence. I mean this tactic won't work forever but we figured we should use the current situation to our benefit. The lessons went good but also bad. HAHA... we did just jump right in and go for it but boy was there some awkward transitions and times when the "investigator" would ask questions and we would not know how to respond because we simply did not know what they were asking. When in doubt, you just gotta smile and share your testimony.

- You guys, we all need to be studying the Book of Mormon everyday. It is such a good book and it has taught me a ton just in these past 2 weeks.

BEST:

My life is changing very quickly. Everyday presents a new obstacle and a new chance to mess up. For this reason I have been feeling a lot of fear... fear about going to the Mexico MTC, fear about not knowing Spanish, fear of being a bad missionary. Because of these feelings, a scripture I turned to time after time was Mosiah 8:16 and more specifically the last statement in that verse that says simply

"Perfect Love casteth out all fear"

Love is powerful. We all love something. For many of us, we love our families, our friends, our hobbies or our favorite TV shows. While being in the MTC I have strived to increase my personal love for the Savior and my Heavenly Father. I am still striving each day to achieve a "perfect love" but I know that as I do my best to love the Lord, to love His work and His children, I am left without fear. Whenever you feel fear, I know He is there for you and I know that as we fill ourselves with love for others, our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ we can overcome those feelings of fear or worry.

I love you all

"Work Hard, Keep the Commandments, Have a Positive Attitude and Show Gratitude"

-Elder Stringham