Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Clarifying the Reasons

Hello, everyone! Life is going great at the CCM, and I'm learning a ton of Spanish. I'm learning a bunch of new stuff and trying to apply myself as best I can. We take morning classes about language and the gospel. We teach a lesson to a fake investigator, and bare our hearts out to our teachers as if our lives depended on it. In the afternoon is physical activity (lots of soccer) and study time on the computer. And in the evening is more classes and another lesson with a different investigator. It feels good at the end of each day. 

Elder Godoy spoke to us last night, which was really cool- he's a great public speaker.  He spoke in General Conference, I believe, a couple sessions ago. And ELDER BEDNAR'S coming in a few weeks!!!!! Rumors have been circulating for a while now, but they're confirmed. YES!!!!!!! This is extraordinarily amazing news, as he's an apostle whom I've looked up to for a good portion of my life. Today, we also got to go to the Lima Temple. This was a sacred experience, though it was in a different language, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity we had to go. 

Though life is going great, I'm pining to get out in the field and start moving...that is, after all, why I came here.  I'm afraid it may not have been completely clear to some concerning the reasons I went on my mission. The enthusiastic sentiment of how great an experience it will be is by no means incorrect, but nevertheless avoids the heart of the matter. I'm learning a new language and will be living in far more humble circumstances than I'm used to, which will undeniably help me understand the world in a sense that would otherwise be impossible. Miracles and stories I'll see will stay with me for the rest of my life. I hope I'll become a better person. I'll develop skills and habits that benefit my future education and career paths, and ultimately (hopefully) become a better person than I was before.

All of these, I think, are valid reasons for going on a mission. But the heart of it all is that there are people whom I can teach the most spectacular truths of mankind; people who would otherwise, by necessity, live without them. I'm learning a new language because back in the 1800s, God gave a promise in the form of revelation that said everyone will learn the gospel in their own language across the world (Doctrine and Covenants 90: 10-11). Keep in mind, of course, that at this time the idea of "Mormons" branching out across the world seemed fairly ridiculous, being a struggling new religion of three years that seemed doomed to suffer persecution to its end even in the land of religious freedom. Yet, of course, God's words shall all be fulfilled, and now I and more than 80,000 other missionaries travel the whole world with a single purpose: to teach the gospel. So I intend to become completely part of this story. To take Huancayo and the mountains around it as my own and teach all who will listen. It's cold, all the natives say adamantly. We have a Quorum of Twelve Apostles, one of whom personally through revelation called me to this place.

So why not give everything for something this magnificent, right? It's a good work, and I know it's true. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen