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August 20, 2012

Hola familia! How have y´all been? This week went pretty well. Its always an adjustment to have a new companion especially because i was will E. Cruz for 2 transfers. But here we are, 2 gringos from California. We speak spanish together--he has more time than me so he speaks well. We´ll see how long that lasts. In the zone there are a bunch of greenies--3 newbies fresh from the US--of course they dont speak any spanish. There is one who speaks well because he was waiting for his visa for 3 changes and so went to another mission and spoke some spanish. But the other two--NADA. It reminds me of my days in San Blas. I can´t believe that was a year ago. Can you believe that??!! This week we worked super hard. We had an awesome zone conference on thursday and i recieved a lot of personal revelation of what i need to do better. I put all into practice but i still havent been able to see the results. I have felt that Satan is putting a bunch of excuses in my little head-- this week i thought "this area is cursed. Everyone who gets here baptized a lot before and baptizes after but nobody baptizes here." In a way its true--its a sad truth. E. Sandoval was baptizing alot, he got here and baptized 1. He left and is baptizing like crazy again. But that doesnt mean its an excuse. I learned a lot from a story about Albert Einstein...
"There were two kids playing on a frozen river. In the course of their games, the ice broke and one of the children was tramped underneath the ice. The other child grabbed a branch nearby and broke the ice, allowing the child to escape. When the firemen arrived they asked how he had escaped. When the children answered, they didnt believe it--"You are far too weak to brake this ice with only a branch. How can it be possible?" Albert Einstein passed by in that moment and gave them the answer. He said, "He was able to do it, because nobody was around to tell him that he couldnt."" We are our own limit. If we forget what others say and focus on what God knows we can do, we can do anything (see Moroni 7:33). That story was really powerful and i felt the desire to change, even though i havent had so much success lately, i know that it can be done.

I hope you all have had an awesome week. (Worldly alert) Thats awesome about Robbie Brantley! Representin´ Chaparral! Thats so cool. I wish that that could be me haha but i doubt that it will ever happen--if you can believe it i have actually lost weight--like a couple pounds but still. Its absolutely impossible to gain weight--this week at one point it was like 115 degrees. Yeah its hot. Good for the Dodgers too--i am confident that they will win it. (end of worldly alert). Well, i hope that work and school and all other activities (other than dating....(Amy >:/)) have been going well and will continue to go well. I have to be completely honest--i am having a really tough time writing right now. Its really loud here in the cybercafe (thats what theyre called right?) and the truth is I am struggling to write in English. I hope that you can forgive me haha. I still have more than 9 months to go and i am sucking at writing in english. You all are going to make fun of me sooooo much. I think i´ll have to give my homecoming talk in spanish. If you dont speak spanish--oh well haha.

Well that all i got for ya´ll. Have an awesome week. ¡Que tengan buena semana!

--Elder Crisp :)