New District

This week has been different. We're getting used to the new district. It's not as good as I'd hoped, but not nearly as bad as I'd feared. As for the bunks, yes we are still in that room with 6 other elders, and they're all Latinos. Actually, one is American, but he's lived in Barranquilla the last 2 years, so he knows Spanish already. I think people are mostly pretty impressed with our district. The other District of Nortes that we combined with had a reputation for not being very motivated, but it seems to be that it was their teachers that weren't helping them too much. Luckily, the teachers from my old district are our new teachers, and they're fantastic. One of them can even make the subjunctive tense make sense.

I've still been healthy, but I think I need to take those fiber pills more regularly if I want to keep it that way.

As for teaching, we are doing better. One of the investigators is Hermana DuVall, and I like her way of doing it. She stops it a little early and gives us feedback. It's very helpful.

 

This week was a bit of a struggle. My biggest problem is keeping my energy and enthusiasm up all the time. I'm always working, and trying to be an uplift to others, but I don't feel like I'm able to do that much. For some reason, the middle of the day is the hardest for me. In the morning and at night, I feel pretty great. It's something I've noticed that I have to improve on. 

 

Last week, before all of the new people came in, our district had an interview with President Duvall, which is where he told the other district that they had a reputation of being very unmotivated. He didn't say anything about my district then. But he also gave us some really good advice about contacting and teaching and stuff, which has been very helpful. Though I haven't been able to use the contacting yet. For the next one, since there are no new Nortes who don't speak Spanish, we'll just be sticking with our regular companions. But he also told us that he was kind of disappointed that none of us had really come to talk to him. I always thought I would be a bother if I did that, but apparently  not. Elder Georgeson and I both felt like we wanted to talk to him. I don't know what Elder Georgeson talked to him about, but I asked him for suggestions to improve. He told me to take the step in Ether 12:27. It  took me a few days, but yesterday I did exactly that during personal study, and I received answers. I received a few things to improve on, but what comforted me the most was the sense of peace that I felt. I felt like the Lord was ok with how I was doing. The thought that came to mind was, You're ok. I want you to improve so you can be a better servant, but you're doing ok. Don't worry so much about your faults and just work. It was very comforting to me that I'm trusted enough that He'd tell me that.

 

Thank you for that story Dad, it was very uplifting. I can't wait to be able to see that in those that I teach. It's one thought that keeps me going when I'm having a hard time.

 

I hope that Grandma and Grandpa are feeling better soon. I hope school continues going well for Mom and Kate, and that Tyson and Jalen and Sydney enjoy this year too. We will have to see how it goes.

 

Elder Georgeson is a District Leader again, which is a funny story. He wanted to be district leader (which I personally think is crazy). He just feels like he does a really good job at it. But President came and talked to Elder Boyak, which got him down. Apparently President had told him that he'd done a really good job as the District Leader, which made him hope. But when we had a meeting and President called the district leaders, he called both Elder Boyak and Elder Georgeson, since our district is so big. So he was pretty happy, and we laughed about it after.

 

That's pretty much been my week, nothing too out of the normal other than adjusting to the new people in the CCM and our new District. We will see how this next week goes. Next week we should be emailing around this same time, 2:30 to 3:30. I love you all, and thank you for your prayers for me! 

 

I don't have pictures to send, because 1. the scenery is all the same, nothing really new to take pictures of, and 2. The wifi broke this morning when we were at the temple, and they spent all morning trying to fix it. They were only able to do it enough to send emails, not enough bandwidth to send pictures. Sorry!