Week 9

It feels good to be at least more than a month in now haha. This week has been much better than the last two! Stuff actually happened.

so Monday we were playing soccer and my comp kicked the ball at the same time as our zone leader and dislocated his big toe hahaha. he sat in the room for 3 days while i went out in a trio with the companionship in the area nearby. He has been going out with me since Friday but it is so hard for him haha and i think his toe will be screwed up forever because of it. he goes home in 3 weeks and couldn't bear the thought of going home early so he is trying. He wakes up and works out really hard for an hour but doesn't really do anything because he doesn't know how to work out. I asked him why and he told me its because he has gained 40 lbs in the mission and wants to lose it before he goes home hahaha. I can see why, because he buys bread and cake on every corner lol! . 

So we get to visit the temple here in Lima ever 3 months and we can get permission to go to it with our investigators so that is cool. I think we are going next month. 

I started studying the dictionary in order to expand my vocabulary to see what I can do. I have just been focusing on learning like 5 new words a day and it has been helping a lot. but i am still very far behind. Cruz had to watch a session of conference in English with me because I didn't have any other companion and he was complaining that he didn't understand a thing and so I told him, welcome to my life. I think it kinda shed some light for him on what I am experiencing. 

I got a haircut on Monday and it was so fresh. They whip a straight razor and shave your whole head all around the corners it was the best haircut I have ever gotten, and it was only 6 soles and ones in America are like 14 dollars lol. 

Not a ton happened this week but it was much better than the last. we had to go to migrations this week so I got to spend a full day with all my homies from the ccm. they took a print of every one of our fingers twice haha and gave us a dental check and whatnot. It was kinda sketch but it was nice. 

Also, I had to go to the hospital with my comp for a checkup and it was pretty ghetto. it was probably one of the cleaner ones and the nicer ones but the zone leaders warned me that i might see someone die haha. 

General Conference was the highlight of the week. it was so nice to hear some English again, i had forgotten that English and white people existed. We didn't have to do any work and just got to be spiritually enlightened. I think my favorite talk was Elder Uchtdorf's first one. He said "I have confidence that we will be satisfied with the judgment of Christ, but I think we will also be astonished and overwhelmed at the mercy and grace of our Savior." It is such an interesting thought to think that we will know that his judgment will be just and we will know what we have done. I know that we absolutely cannot earn our salvation on our own, for we are saved by grace, after all we can do. he then talked about how we teach the answers to questions that philosophers have searched for their whole lives for to 3-year-olds in sunbeams and how perfect the plan of salvation is. Do we take for granted the knowledge we have? I know that I took a lot of things for granted before I got here. We need to try harder not to be too accustomed to the gospel and be more grateful. I also loved his thing about the flag that he saw that said "what shall we give in return for so much?" that quote sure hit me hard right now. What am i willing to give? 2 years? my life? it makes me also think of a talk by Elder Holland in which he talks about how salvation never was easy. it wasn't easy for Christ so how could it be for us?  

We need to give just a little bit more and try just a little bit harder to be grateful and how great will be our reward. this gospel is awesome. it is the same here in Peru in Spanish as it is in the states at home. 

--

Much Love,

Elder Mortenson