20170301 Andrew Geddes MTC letter 2

From: Andrew Geddes 
Date: Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 3:42 PM
Subject: Elder Geddes
To: Adonna Geddes

There is so much to say. The night that we got here I was able to hear President Nielson speak and got to shake his hand! It was really cool to meet an apostle. After that the first two days were so slow. They jammed a whole bunch of rules on us and I tried to understand when they spoke to us in Spanish. They called Elder Lawyer to be our District Leader. He is a nice kid and is always helpful in Spanish. The days just blur together here you wake up at 6:30am, study and go to classes all day. My Spanish has improved a lot but there is soooo much to learn. My companion is Elder Burrup. I’m grateful that I got him as my companion. There are a lot of Disobedient missionaries. On Sunday we had church and a lot of Devotionals. It was really spiritual. In priesthood one of the Elders in my zone, Elder Burton, gave a really powerful testimony. Just about everyone in the room was crying. He left the CCM on his mission earlier this week. The food here is okay. We all made the mistake of eating the beans and suffered for it our first week. This Monday everyone had Diarrhea... I don’t eat the beans anymore haha. Me and my companion were made zone leaders on Monday. I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve. I have been trying to be exactly obedient to the white handbook. We had a problem with the most disobedient missionary in our zone named Elder Sanders. We aren’t aloud to have people in our apartment and he came into our apartment. Me and my companion asked him to leave but he wouldn’t so we raised our voices a little bit and then he left. Later he came to us and said that we aren’t going to be respected as leaders if we are yelling at people. He was especially unhappy with me. I apologized for raising my voice but told him that it’s a rule not to let people into our Apartments and that we need to strive to be obedient. We are teaching fake investigators in Spanish every day. I don’t speak Spanish yet haha. I try my best but rely heavily on my companion who knows a lot of Spanish. I got a little emotional during class this week because I was really struggling with the language. My teacher talked to me about it and I was able to change my perspective and have been able to memorize a lot of words. There is a leader here named Hermano Hernandez, I’m so grateful for him. He is in charge of a lot of things but I connected with him in class and he said he will teach me. He takes the time to help teach me one on one when he has the time. I feel the spirit pretty much whenever he talks. I almost forgot! On Sunday what happens is everyone prepares a talk and when Sacrament meeting starts the branch president says, "Okay today we are hearing from..." and names off a bunch of people. My zone is full of people who have been here a while except for my district. There was only one person from my district who got called to give a talk. Can you guess who it was??? My talk was on receiving revelation. I had to give to whole thing in Spanish by the way. I had a talk prepared but my Spanish is really bad. I read the whole thing. I was so nervous. But I guess I did something right because my companion and I are Zone leaders. God has humbled me a lot already here. He is teaching me paciencia and not to compare myself to others. I pray a lot but I need to more because I can’t do anything on my own. I need his help to bless me with el Don de Lenguas. I am trying to work on not judging. I have a hard time with Elder Sanders. I just need to love Him like Christ would. Our personalities just don’t mesh. He is going to my same mission so I bet God will make us companions at one point as a joke haha.... Sorry if I misspelled some words. It’s a Spanish keyboard and I can’t see if I accidently misspelled a word. I just want to know how you’re doing. I have pictures but I don’t have the camera cord to upload them. If I figure out a way to send them I will.

Amor,

Elder Geddes