Qualify - with an eye single to the glory of God

letter #5
Sept. 23, 2013

Well, word that Clif's father passed away unexpectedly, and that he really wasn't that old, has made for some extremely sad news.  Nicole, I will make sure I send a letter to you before I leave here.  I haven´t had much time for letters, but I made time to write one to Shannon (I got the letter on the 24th, so only about 16 days after it was sent :P) Hopefully it won't take that long to get to you.

I´m not the zone leader, probably partially because they don't want to have to call a new one every week :P The guy that was called is doing a good job.  Oh, he wants to do BYU marching band when he is back from his mission, so if we both make it into the band, we´ll have an even better friendship! :)

      So my district will be leaving on the 30th at about 2am because we have to be there 4 hours before the flight leaves and apparently there is traffic at 2... :\

     With only a few days left here at the MTC, the work is getting harder for us, too.  This week we have 5 "investigators" who we teach... of course we already had our last lesson with one of them (Hermano Cruz, our teacher in the morning), and then we have our last lesson with the other teacher, Hermano Valdez, this Saturday. We have 2 more lessons with 2 of our district members who we are supposed to teach this week.... but the blessings are coming too.  Like me getting a letter from Shannon, and another from Sister Erskine.  And I have had the opportunity to teach with the spirit so strongly that after the lessons the person we taught would tell us that we did a good job, and that they could feel the spirit the whole lesson :)  Something that I've been striving for for some time.  

      Also, we have the opportunity to go to the temple every other week, so I got to go again this morning and yeah, the rooms are really pretty.  They are different than any I´ve been in, but pretty. [here are a few pictures of the Mexico City LDS Temple and the surrounding grounds] 

Mexico City Temple Visitor's Center

Christus statue in the Visitor's Center of the Mexico City Temple

    Dad, I am doing my best to focus all the time, and I have been trying to help my district focus on studying and planning, but sometimes it is hard...it can be a challenge, but I'm trying to use my time well.  And, Wow, I can't believe that the church has been involved in scouting for 100 years!  That's a long time...

     Shannon, I appreciated all that you said... it is a good way to lighten up my mood after the sad news about Opa. That is nice to know that Brianna is loving school and is not as timid at soccer.  And that Chelsea..she is such a fun goof dressing as Cinderella, dancing around and singing made-up lyrics to classical piano music:). 

    Okay, one of our exercises was trying to determine how to best help out our companion, so we tried to create a scripture chain that would help with this need.  Without knowing the 'need of the companion', but being led by the spirit, I came up with a scripture in the book of mormon to help them.  It was pretty cool how I thought of the scripture chain too, so I can explain it in the letter and you can share it with the family because I cant think of it right now...And, I have been reading my spanish book of mormon more and I actually understand almost everything it says now! I occasionally have to look up a word or two, but i understand it!  And most the time i don't even have to translate it into english to understand :)
    On a final note:  I am always trying to recognize the blessings that I'm receiving here and I have expressed so much thanks to the Lord.  I´m excited to be going to Houston, but I´m nervous because now I have real investigators that I have to teach and if I mess up, I mess up for real, so I will be relying on the Lord so much more. I feel pretty ready, but it´s intimidating. I have less than a week...6 weeks has gone by so quickly....