Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Adam - July 27, 2010

Hey Everyone,
Everything is going great at the MTC. I'm just about to finish week 5... or 6 here and I have 3 left. It's so weird to see people come and go. You get attached to a group of Elders, and two weeks later, they all leave. This monday, the oldest district in our Zone left for Nicaragua. Now, we're the oldest district and I definitely don't feel like the oldest. I remember back to when I was brand new. I looked up to those older districts so much, so it's hard to imagine that the Elders coming in right now are looking up to me. I never thought that I'd be an example to people here, at least not this soon. So here's some pretty awesome news, Elder Whittaker and I were made the New Zone Leaders on Sunday. We're just movin up and up here. Ha ha. Just kidding. It's actually easier than District Leader from what I've had to do. There is one extra meeting on Sunday, but you don't have to conduct any meetings, interview the Senior Companions. It's way easier! I love it. This wednesday we are bringing in the newest District in our Zone. They are going to El Salvador, Chile, and I think there is one other place, but I'm not sure. E. Whitt and I teach them a few rules, show them around the residence halls, and on Thursday, we show them around campus. I remeber when Elder Trent and Elder Little (Our old Zone Leaders) brought us around. It was so much fun, so I hope I will be able to make it fun.
So one of the cool things that happened this week was during our TRC last wednesday. So a TRC stands for Training Resource Center... I think. And what happens is every week you have a situation including an investigator. You have to go in and teach them the specified lesson according to their needs. There are two parts to it, the first is a spanish task where you have to talk to the investigator about clothes, food, or furniture. Then the second part you have to teach. For the first 4 weeks, the lessons are in English, but last week we moved over to Spanish. I was really nervous to teach the whole thing in Spanish, but our teacher, Hermano Salmón, kept telling us that if we have faith. We can be like Jesus and "Walk on Water". It was pretty inspirational, but we just went ahead and tried to teach the lesson the best we could in Spanish. We started off and it was really rough! I kept freezing and didn't know what to say, and Elder Whittaker started teaching a part of the second lesson. I tried to tie it back into the lesson, but I'm sure it sounded Ultra-Awkward! I was jumping around from point to point, so the lesson didn't flow at ALL! But we made our way to the Restoration and started talking about Joseph Smith. I began to recite the first vision in spanish (which i had just learned a few days earlier) and our investigator put her head down. She seemed like it was getting a little emotional for her. I actually didn't notice this because I was thinking too hard about what i wanted to say. But we made it to the end of the lesson. Everything seemed like it went pretty well, I asked her to pray, and she accepted. She started praying and about half-way through, she started to cry. She felt the spirit and so did we! Even though we had a rough lesson, we brought the Spirit which is the most important part!
I know that even though I'm struggling with the language, the Spirit will always help me convey my message. I love this church so much, and I love you all! Write me and let me know what's happening out there. Love you all!
-Elder Adam Paulsen

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