Vive España: I Love This

Wow. This week has been crazy. Full of ups and downs. And a whole lot of Spanish. My companion and I have been trying so hard to speak in Spanish whenever and wherever we can. I can definitely tell that we are both making great progress in the language. Actually, last week, just before I was going to leave for the Madrid MTC, the branch presidency asked me to give a talk, completely in Spanish. It was great. I know that when I get to Spain, a lot of people won't be able to understand what I am saying, but fortunately, we have the universal language of the Spirit on our side. In almost all of our lessons, we have tried to focus on that aspect of the Spirit, because we don't know the language perfectly, and will be only able to communicate our message through feelings and actions rather than words.

Currently, we are teaching three different investigators, all of which have their own specific needs and problems that we need to address, which is hard, but the Spirit definitely directs us with what we need to say. For example, yesterday, during my personal study, I had the weirdest prompting to reteach one of our investigators the Restoration, which was weird, because that is lesson one, and we were on lesson three. I decided to study it, a lot more in depth this time, to make sure that we had one hundred percent covered it. I was really intimidated going into our lesson, because our investigator is incredibly intelligent and sees literally any flaw that we have in our lessons. He's a humanities professor and is very, very well read. We decided to go forward with the lesson and it went flawlessly. At the end of the lesson, he just laid back in his chair and said, "Wow. That was a very good lesson, Elders. I didn't understand very much about your church and Joseph Smith during the first lesson so this was a great review and way to help me understand." It was so awesome! I was on cloud nine. God really does let you know what you need to teach in the very moment you are supposed to teach it.

No word on the VISA. We only have a week and half left in the MTC, but God will send us where we are most needed. I really have understood that with not getting to the Madrid MTC. His ways are higher than our ways, because most of the time, we just want instant gratification, but he knows what will make us grow and eventually make us the most happy.

That's another thing that I've learned coming to the MTC. God gives us weaknesses and trials so that we can be stronger (see Ether 12:27) So, rather than looking at the bad and the painful experiences that come with life, it's a much, much better idea to look at the positive and try and see what there is to gain out of this experience.

Our zone is great. We had a zone wide kick ball game, and it was amazing. I don't think I've played kickball since elementary school, but still we had a blast. It started raining so we had to leave a little bit early, but we thought it was a great way to build zone unity. That's what me and my companion are trying to do as zone leaders, and make our zone as unified as it can be. We have meeting with the sister training leaders and district leaders every Friday and Sunday to try and help get ideas how we can prepare our zone, and make it an example to the rest of the West Campus.

Another amazing experience I had this week was teaching our teacher (posing as an investigator). I shared Ether 12:4, which talks about having hope in a better world through Christ. The Spirit was SO strong. Our object of the lesson was trying to show her the benefits of living the gospel, and I wanted to show her that believing in and having faith in Christ gives you hope for a better world. That scripture has really helped me on the mission by being able to see the positive in life. Actually, just read all of Ether 12. It really is one of the best chapters in all of scripture.

God answers prayers. I know that more that anything now. We had a fireside at Main Campus on Sunday, and I forgot my scriptures and notebook there. I was pretty worried that I wouldn't find them, or that I they would get taken to an entirely different part of campus. I prayed, and had this feeling not to worry about it, that God would take care of it. The next day, I got called into the main office and they told me that they had found them and eventually returned them. It was awesome. God is in the details of our lives. I know that it a very small thing to get worried about, but it really showed me how much He really does care about, and loves us.

Love you all, thank you so much for all of the support you have given me.

Love,

Elder Weenig