MTC: Keeping a Sense of Humor

Que Honda! Mi amigos en Los Estados Unidos!

    This week was one that was full of lot´s of ups and downs! I´m so ready to enter the field but also a little terrified to be speaking only in Spanish. I´m super grateful for these last two weeks en El CCM to learn as much as I can before I get thrown out of the frying pan and into the fire!

    We are getting to the point though, where we are trying to stay sane. My favorite practice of sanity so far, is this game we invented called "spooning". The goal of the game is to sneak a plastic spoon from the cafeteria onto another missionaries person. Usually you slide it through a belt loop, into a suit pocket, or my favorite, into their suit collar. So one day we´re singing up in the choir for choir practice (It´s like the one musical outlet we have the option of doing here, and it was a men´s choir that day. Sounded pretty cool.) and I slide a spoon into the collar of the guy in front of me. Before I know it, one of the Elders in the choir slides another spoon into my hand. So of course, I slide it into this guys collar. This isn´t made easier by the fact that this guys collar is pretty tight and he is moving around A TON. Out of nowhere Elders just keep handing me spoons and I get a peacock tail of five of them sticking out of this guys collar. He stretches and I just about lose it thinking these spoons are going to fall out, but amazingly, none of them did. All the Elders around me are just struggling to keep straight faces and sing through fits of laughing. 

    We all walk off the stand and back to our seats in the auditorium for a closing prayer. The lady in charge asks for volunteers and who should volunteer, but spoon guy. He starts to walk up and the whole choir loses it, just breaking down in laughter. I think it suffices to say that I reached legendary spooning status that day.

    In more athletic news, We´ve been playing TONS of cage soccer this week. It´s kind of like indoor soccer, but it´s outside and the walls are like that of a tennis court. On the inside it´s just your typical pavement but with two goals protruding from either end (I´ll send a pic next week). The list of injuries that have accumulated include:

• My ingrown toenail getting completely obliterated
• One elder rolling his ankle, it swelling to twice the normal size and he needed a wheelchair
• One Elder´s eye bleeding, and temporary loss of vision in it
• And many other insignificant, yet still painful injuries

    My companion and I were struggling a little bit at the beginning, Me wanting to follow the rules with exactness and being somewhat strict, him being the polar opposite. We´re getting along much better now though, mostly because I think we´re understanding each other more and more. I think M. Russel Ballard said something along the lines of ´When there is contention between two people it´s because they don´t understand each other.

    I´m learning tons about Spanish, and about the Gospel of Christ and I´m loving it!

Spiritual Thought:

I´ve been thinking alot this week about investigators and how they will respond to my giving them commitments. I was reading In the First Epistle of John this week and found this little nugget of gold:

• 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

When I extend commitments and am teaching investigators, I shouldn´t be afraid, I should have a complete love for them. I´m reading alot out of the New Testament right now and just loving it! For anyone who hasn´t read it, you definitely should. In the LDS church we have the Book of Mormon and I feel like the Bible is overlooked more than it should be.

I love all you guys and am wishing you the best while I´m out here! Keep me updated with e-mails!

Elder Walker