It´s just been another week of learning, learning, teaching, and some more learning. The schedule and days run together so much you don´t remember if you learned something 2 hours ago or 2 days ago. But we still have our fun and spiritual moments.
It´s become tradition in our district to sing "Jesus es mi luz" as a way to close out every day. It is hymn 42. Guess what other great closer had the number 42... Mariano Rivera. It was fun to make that connection. It's the little things that keep us sane here lol. Thursday was a sad day because our Italians left. Since day 3 we've played volleyball with an Italian district and it was a lot of fun, but they all left so we've turned to challenging and dominating every district that tries to challenge us. We are undefeated against every district. And speaking of volleyball, we just spend almost 2 hours playing sand volleyball in pouring rain, and it was probably our best game ever. For the 4th of July we had a special devotional. It was 2 hours of "America is the greatest." It was cool but at the same time hard because I'm supposed to become and Argentine and leave a lot of my American pride at home. Then we got to watch the fireworks from stadium of fire. Well by watch, it was stand in a parking lot for 30 minutes and try to watch them with trees blocking our way. At lunch one day we were ranking Office characters and as soon as I said "I'm usually the Toby of my friend group" I spilled and broke my glass. So the timing could not have been any better. My question is why do they give us glass cups to use in the first place?
Along with the fun, I've had plenty of other experiences. One of the biggest has come bit by bit. Before the mission I almost never read from the Book of Mormon, but I spend at least and hour reading it every day here and the way it helps set the tone for the rest of the day is incredible. I'm on track to be able to finish it next Wednesday. We taught Marco on Friday and at first it was rough. It was rough because Elder Holtry's stuttering problem was manifesting itself in every word he tried to speak and he kept apologizing to Marco for it. Then Marco did something amazing. The thing about Marco is that he has Polio. He uses crutches to walk and has a hard time standing up under his own power. But he said "Look at me" and under his own strength stood up and stared at both of us and then sat back down. He then told us (all in Spanish of course, but I'll translate) "We all have handicaps or struggles in our lives and we should never apologize. Do you think that every time I pass someone on my crutches I say sorry to them? No! We should never apologize for our difficulties. God knows us and understands our limitations. I know you Elders don't speak Spanish very well, but in my heart I feel you message. I feel in my heart the truth. That's why I want to be baptized" It was so emotional and powerful. That's why we're missionaries is because of experiences like that. Now because he's TRC he might be an actual member pretending to be an investigator, but it doesn't matter because the Spirit that was in the room was so real and that's what matters. Speaking of the Spirit, we had a devotional last night about the power of the first vision in converting. I want to end my email with mi testimonio de José Smith
Yo sé que José Smith es un profeta. Yo sé que José Smith vió Dios y Jesucristo. José Smith es porque yo tengo un testimonio de la Iglesia de Jesucristo. Yo sé que el Libro De Mormon es la palabra de Dios. En el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.
-Elder Steele
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