Instead, I will have one on Wednesday. March 1st. So please send me your weekly email before then. I love to hear about how your lives are. I report to Texas the following Monday, so I am thinking I will get to write that Monday too because it is a Pday.
I ONLY HAVE TEN DAYS LEFT IN THE CCM! That is crazy. I love it here, but I am definitely ready to get out into the field. My language is mediocre at best, but I want to start teaching real people who need the gospel in their lives.
I NEED to make one thing clear. I did not realize how bad I made the Elder ****** situation sound. I promise it was not as bad. It is just that we both have very different personalities that clash sometimes. He has a strong testimony and a powerful desire to serve a mission. He is a little stubborn, but I am patient. I let some things get to me that I should not have, and I apologize. He is a good man. He will be a good missionary. He just has a more loose interpretation of the rules and guidelines in the White Handbook. More often than not, we do get along.
Let's just hop right into my week!
Friday: Friday was interesting... I was kind of feeling down and I did not really know why... I haven't felt homesick at all since I have been here, so I really sat down and pondered on why I was feeling the way I was... I could not narrow it down to a specific reason. So naturally, I blamed Satan for trying to get to me. I decided that in order to fight back, I needed to show more love for those around me. This week I went out of my way to help the people around me feel happy, study, understand concepts, learn Spanish, I even helped the kitchen staff clean a little bit. It was a good week.
Saturday: I did the math. On Saturday I was 3.5% done with my mission. That was weird to me. as of today, It is more like 4.5% CRAZY. On Saturday, we also started teaching our classmates as other investigators. We all had to create our own investigator. Mine's name is Antonio. His parents are divorced, he lives with his mom and stepdad. He has a smoking problem as well. It is kind of fun to play the role of an investigator. We also had TRC which is when you teach real people from Mexico City. Most of the time they are members. I taught an hermana who served her mission in Dallas! She told me to tell President Taylor that she said hello.
Sunday: Elder Jorgensen gave a talk in sacrament meeting. It was good. Elder Kent from the younger district in our zone went to the hospital because of a stomach problem. He is back now and everything is good there. Sunday night, President Machado made me and Elder ******** sit down with him. He made us talk about our feelings and everything. Afterward, President Machado told both of us what we need to work on. He told me I need to work on charity and love... Which honestly in the moment did not make sense to me. I have my mom's caring heart. I love everyone haha. But I went home and really really prayed about it and I think I have a good plan on how to be better with that. I also was told to work on humility. Guess I hadn't noticed a pride issue with myself. So I will work harder there as well. I just want to be the best missionary I can possibly be. I spent the whole hour and a half of personal study praying. I really wanted some questions answered that I had.
Monday: Monday was a REALLY good day. After dinner during personal study, I just noticed how happy my district was. I really noticed how well we get along. I feel like a huge part of that is because we have the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel truly does make us happier. We have the answers to all of life's biggest questions. We do not need to waste any moment of our time on wondering what will happen after we die. We already know that. I was really enjoying just observing my district that night.
Tuesday: PRESIDENT NELSON CAME! Literally such an amazing experience. Every missionary got to shake his hand. He moves pretty well for a 92-year-old man... The main topic of his talk was that the Lord uses the unlikely to accomplish the impossible. He talked about the story of Gideon and how the lord was able to use 300 men to wipe out an army of 150,000. The Lord did that so that they would not be able to deny the power of God. It is a really cool story. He also talked about how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon at a rate of 9 pages a day. President Nelson said that the church's best translators today, translate about one page a day. Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon in less time than most of us read it. He also mentioned that 176,000,000 copies of the Book of Mormon have been distributed in 110 languages worldwide. He talked about how the BoM is a gift from God to ALL mankind and that we should really handle the BoM with care. The Book of Mormon refuses the Myths of the world. It proves the Godhead are 3 individual beings, It tells why baptizing babies is wrong. It also proves many other things. He also talked about how the Book of Mormon is the most perfectly translated book ever in existence. He talked about how Helaman 3:14 has a ton of "and"s in it. In English, that is a major grammatical error. However, when you translate it back into ancient script, it is correct. They actually wrote like that back then. He also mentioned that he was on his 14th draft for his conference talk in April. He still has two months haha. He also mentioned that we all won the battle of abortion to be here on this earth. I had never really thought about how abortion is a REAL battle that a lot of people do indeed have to fight in order to make it to earth. It is really sad. To close his talk, President Nelson left us all with a blessing. I had NEVER heard of a member of the quorum of the twelve ending a talk with a blessing for everyone in attendance. I tried to write the basics of the blessing down: I bless you with a burning desire to learn of Christ. I bless you with zeal. I bless you with health and strength. I bless you to be obedient. I bless your loved ones that they will be drawn closer to the Lord because of your service. It was such an awesome night. Afterward, in our personal study, Hermana Caldwell told me that I should read a talk from the April 2016 general conference called, "Do I Believe". I felt that this talk was an answer to my prayers from the other night. At least the questions that were not answered by President Nelson haha.
Wednesday: I LOVE THIS QUOTE: "Be the kind of missionary that when your feet touch the ground in the morning, Satan says, 'Oh Fetch! He´s awake!'" It just reminds me of the kind of missionary I want to be. I want to do some damage to Satan's kingdom. I really started to miss my district on Wednesday. We still have a week and a half, but I know I will miss them.
Thursday: yesterday was really hard for me. I woke up at like 3 am and could not fall back asleep. I was really tired for the rest of the day. We did not really do a whole lot, but it was good.
TODAY: Today I am getting a haircut. We will see how I like it. You can either get a 2 or a 3. Those are your only options for a haircut haha. My district is also having a ping pong tournament later. It is going to be fun.
As for the language, I learn more every day. I go to bed every single day tired, and I really hope that I will be able to go to bed tired every single day of my mission. THAT is what will make me a successful missionary. I love where I am, I love what I am doing. I love this Gospel. I know that it blesses the lives of so many. I know that Jesus Christ lives and is my savior and redeemer. I know that through Him, All mankind can be saved. I know that it is because of Him that I can live with my family for eternity. It is because of His sacrifice that I can see my Grandpa and Grandma again. I KNOW without a doubt that God loves ALL of his children perfectly and that no matter what someone has been doing for their whole life if they come to God and repent, they will be saved by the Grace of God.
I love you all so much. Please remember I have Pday on Wednesday.
Love,
Elder Bullough
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