Thursday, May 21, 2009

Week 4 in Spain MTC

Hola everyone! I think I start every email off like that. How is everyone doing? Thank you all for your emails again. Well like always, I´ll tell you all how the park went this week. My companion for the park this week was from Ecuador and only spoke Spanish! It helped me a lot because if I needed to tell him something, it had to be in Spanish! It was challenging but worth it. We went crazy in the Park and talked to everyone we saw. Mostly him though since he knew the language. We handed out every pass along card we had and 4 Books of Mormon! We even found some people that spoke english. One was a Buddhist though and didn´t speak spanish so I didn´t have much help on that one from my companion haha. Oh my companions name was Elder Pastillo and he is such a great guy. He motivated me a ton when we were out there. He is always so happy and encouraged me when I was trying to speak Spanish. He got so excited when I gave a Book of Mormon to a man on the metro. He kept hugging me and laughing and I felt so good. He has made a lot of sacrifices to get here and it has inspired me. In his culture, everyone has hair down to their waist. He showed me a picture of him before his mission and I couldn´t even recognize him. He told me it was very hard for him to cut his hair. He actually got emotional about it when he was talking about it. But it touched me when he said he didn´t care if his friends made fun of him for it because he was doing it for the Lord and he would do anything for Him. I learned this week that everyone has their untold story. There are so many elders here that have sacrificed so much to be here. I feel guilty because everybody back home is supporting me and I just pretty much had to say I´m going on a mission. I am very very blessed. Also this week was the 40th anniversary of the church being in Spain and the 10th anniversary of the temple. Some Spanish government officials came to tour the temple grounds and the MTC and we had to opportunity to sing a hymn to them. The spirit was very strong and I hope they were touched. One of the government officials was actually a member and he was crying by the time we were done. I love this mission. What a blessing it is to be able to come out here and feel the spirit everyday serving the Lord. I am growing so much all the time and I love it. I can´t believe I´ll be hitting the field in about a week and a half! That is crazy to me and I hope I´m ready. I´m ready to work thats for sure. The language is something I´ll have to overcome but as long as I have my testimony I think I should be fine. The spirit is the one doing the converting not me. My quote for the week is (I´m going to try and do this every week now) "Life is a grindstone and whether it grinds a man down or polishes him up depends on what he is made of." I love you all and wish you the best. Have a great week.Con Amor, Elder Langston

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