"I speak English okay now"

written May 31st

Elder Quadros and I had a pretty busy week here in the offices. Every day we wake up at 6:30, get ready, and we are here in the offices by 8 at the latest. From there we have a personal study from 8-8:30 and companionship study from 8:30-9:30 where we study and plan together. From there just about anything can and has happened... haha. Most of the nights for us are late nights and I really treasure the nights we get to go to bed on time.  The idea is to be out of the offices and headed towards our area at 4pm but something almost always comes up. I have worked a total of 3 afternoons since being here in the offices. However, the Lord has blessed us to be able to have a lot of success in the little time that we have worked in the field. 

Upon my arrival to the offices yesterday I was feeling pretty down, exhausted, and overwhelmed to the point that I had to have an inward battle to convince myself to kneel down and pray. My prayer was answered as my day was plentiful with enlightening and spirit-filled experiences.

We had two trainings yesterday. The first one was with the district leaders who were recently assigned to that position this last transfer. The second one was with the new missionaries that arrived two transfers ago and their trainers. The training was on leaving commitments and the spirit filled the room as we shared experiences, explained the importance of leaving commitments, and bore testimony of the various steps there are to leaving powerful commitments. I felt a lot better after that. 

I think part of the reason the Spirit was so strong was because President Ávila asked us to do the second training in English just 10 minutes before we started our part. All of the missionaries that were there were English speakers and half of them being new missionaries he wanted to make sure that all of them understood. I speak English okay now because I still speak it here and there but when it comes to speaking about Gospel related things I am a complete disaster. I literally have not spoken about those things in English since before I came on the mission... it was a struggle. Haha! I had to rely on the Lord a lot and speak very simply so I think that helped the Spirit be there so strongly. All of the missionaries and President Ávila got a good laugh out of me and I did as well. It was all in good fun and made my day a lot brighter. Elder Quadros did really well with his English and everyone is always impressed when he speaks (including me even after being his comp for the second time). 

To top the day off we were able to go out to our area and have some great lessons. One of the lessons was with the son of a an active family in the church. He is not a member but is a great guy with a good head on his shoulders. He is actually active in another church but is open to listen to us. We had a nice little lesson getting to know him, talking about our purpose as missionaries, and leaving him with an invitation to begin reading The Book of Mormon. 

The second lesson was with a family that recently was baptized and had been going through a hard time. We were able to help that get back on their feet and commit them to come to church tomorrow. 

Right now I am doing really well. The only thing I need is some rest and P-day couldn't have come at a better time.  

Love you all and I am praying for you,

Elder Rainock