First week is going great! It's been a little difficult getting used to everything here but It's been good so far. Right now we are pretty much busy all day learning Spanish. My Spanish is coming along pretty nice actually. Luckily I remember a lot of my spanish from high school so that helps. Thank you señora Sanchez and Rincon! Haha. We have been focusing on saying a lot of basic phrases and learning how to pray. I am pretty much saying all of my prayers in Spanish now which is pretty awesome! It's crazy how much you can learn in three days when you are studying hard and have a desire to learn more! It definitely takes time and is frustrating at times but I know that if I am an obedient missionary and trust the Lord, my Spanish will come.
Some of you are probably wondering if me and Trent see each other a lot. We actually don't see each other that much. We are in different zones so we live in different residences and have different classes. We only really get to see each other when we eat and during our exercise time which is actually pretty sweet. We get to play basketball or exercise if we want for about an hour a day haha.
My companions name is Elder Hedin. He is from Salt Lake City and is 19 years old. He is very quiet and doesn't say much but mumbles out a lot of little funny comments every once in awhile haha. He's been coming out of his shell a little more and more everyday so that's good. We are pretty much opposites on what we like to do but we work well together. He's not really in to sports except for golf and rock climbing but I'm trying to get him into basketball haha. I can tell he is going to be a good Elder. He is very obedient and seems like he has a strong testimony of the gospel. Yesterday we taught out first lesson in Spanish on the restoration. His name was Fransisco and he's from Chile. He is catholic. It was a little rough during some points of the lesson to find words to say in Spanish but overall it went pretty well for our first one! From what I could see the investigator could understand most of what we were saying. We invited him to pray if what we were saying was true at the end and he said he would! Heavenly Father was definitely there to help us understand and speak. Pretty awesome! We are going to teach him again tonight.
Our main teacher here at the MTC is sister Dibbs. She returned from a mission in Guatemala not too long ago. She is super awesome and always brings the spirit to the classroom. Yesterday we had one of our best lessons so far. She told us about a story found somewhere in the Bible, I'm not sure where it is yet but I will find that out. The story was similar to the story of Moses parting the Sea. The story talks about how God told a group of people that they needed to cross over a body of water and that if they would have faith he would part the water so they could walk across on dry land. The story goes on to tell how after the people heard this they just started walking towards the water having faith even until they got their feet wet. After they got their feet wet, Heavenly Father parted the water and the people were able to walk across on dry land. This story teaches us about how God works. If we want Heavenly Father to help us we need to have faith and act. Sister Dibbs said something very cool after, she said, "You have to get your feet wet before God parts the waters." This is so true. God works with us through our faith. If we want something from God whether is be an answer to a question or help with something we need to take a leap of faith and trust that God will help us. If we do this God will help us and part our waters. One way we can act is through prayer. If you have any questions about the gospel or are struggling I want to challenge you to pray. If you have faith Heavenly Father will help you.
I know that these next to years are gonna be hard but I know this is what I need to be doing. I know that through faith and prayer, Heavenly Father will help me learn Spanish and help me teach this gospel to those in Argentina. I love this gospel and I know it's true. I love you all! Have a great week!
-Elder Reilly
