Preston left the MTC (Missionary Training Center) on Tuesday and entered the mission field. We won’t be getting a letter from him this week. This is his letter from last week! He is truly loving his mission! Dear World, family, and friends
This past week was a rollercoaster let me tell ya! But to start off I want to tell my Cousin Sam and other friends coming to the Colombia CCM, learning a foreign language is hard! You will all probably do better than me, but never the less it is still hard. Somedays you will wonder if you’ll ever get it. However, I am very impressed that I have been able to learn and memorize this much. I am practically leading my lessons with my fake investigator now. But I would say, among all the chaos of learning the language don’t forget to learn the language of the spirit. It has helped me in everything to this point. I rely on it daily, as I take small steps forward having faith in all things. It has taught me so much! Please everyone try hard to recognize and feel the spirit! It may just be a small nudge that doesn’t lead to anything grand, but it’s a nudge to do something good. Whether you know what it is now or later is not important, what matters is you recognize it’s the spirit speaking to you.
Alright let’s get into the funny stuff quick! So, one day one of the Latinos walks up to Elder Whitting and asks... ?Que significa es Elder Goss¿ Oh my gosh it was sooooo funny! This was our joke for the entire week. It’s funny because here in Colombia it isn’t bad at all but in the US, it would be so mean hahahaha!! It’s just a lot of the Latinos know Elder Goss because he is a slightly shorter, bigger man. But I love him and I have had to tell the Latinos to stop being dorks. It doesn’t seem to bug Elder Goss though. Then there is Elder Bergoderi and he is so funny. All the latins hate it when we talk in Inglés. So, he started this thing called the secret combination. People would be like, How do you speak Inglés? He said very loudly, ”It’s the secret combination!” Then, he describes all this stuff in terrible Inglés. It’s soooo fun! You all are probably not laughing, I guess you’d just have to be here! Ha-ha! I love it!
This past week was a rollercoaster because there was a mix of good and bad days. We learned a lot of grammar this week and that was kind of tough, because I thought I knew what I was doing. Then, I would try to right a complex sentence, and it turns out the sentence doesn’t even exist in Español, or it isn’t grammatically correct. But it is in Inglés, so it just sends my head spinning. My maestro en la noche (my teacher at night) is great. Sometimes she just over explains what I don’t understand or I understand why the rules are the rules but she keeps going. I’m like excuse me could you please just say sí o no if my sentence is grammatically correct? Its days like these where I’m like… am I ever going to learn this language??!! But I know I will because I have progressed so much already! My comp recently said that he thinks I teach better than him and he’s the goat at español. I am trying to memorize a scripture a day and up to 101 palabras (words) a day which is insane. I don’t know if I can do that many words, but hey what the heck why not! We also did and Inglés fast on Friday and it was hard but so worth it! I learned a lot, I only used like 3 English words the whole day which is good. The rest of the week is going to be similar because you know… What the heck it’s the last week.
Ok, let’s talk about my experience in Bogotá sur this past Saturday. We do this thing proselitismo and this was my second time. We got a missionary who wasn’t very good at explaining or training. It was 90% worse than last time we went out. What happened is we planned everything out which was good. The Elder training us speaks perfect Inglés, and he’s from Guatemala, but he just did not know how to train us. We had 5 lessons planned and 3 backups. All 5 fell through and only 1 back up happened by the end of the night. We basically walked around a whole bunch and didn’t do much. We started off by learning to contact, so he did a few and then said alright your turn. OK...so we introduced ourselves, and then we didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t try to teach us or correct us. It was very frustrating! Then, in the only lesson we had he did not explain beforehand what we were going to be teaching. So, the one lesson we did teach was two old ladies and a grandchild. It was great! But we had no clue what we were going to be teaching and it was very hard for us to completely understand. Then, by the time we we’re able to understand anything it was too late. The Elder would look at us and we were like, what are we even teaching and what in the heck did that old lady just say?! It was just a complete wreck! I honestly wish I would have just opened my mouth but I didn’t! I guess the lesson for the day was to just open my mouth.
Last story for this week…during proselitismo we went to this house of a young family with two kids, but the father wasn’t home. So, we had to teach the mother through her window. It went great, and she was very nice. We taught her about the Restoration and el Libro de Mormon. She took a folleto (pamphlet) and then at the end when we were going to leave she looked right at me and said, "Dame tus ojos" which means, give me your eyes. Yep…my first snake and she had children and a husband.... awkward!
This past week was hard, but I know that hard work will help bring success! I have seen it over and over in my life; in my wrestling, with my dyslexia, and school, and I am seeing it now. The spirit has helped guide me so much, and I know I couldn’t do it without it. I know if I just keep moving and step out in faith the spirit will guide me and teach me!
If you want to know what I am talking about please go to lds.org or talk to the missionaries, or my family. They would love to see you, and explain why this is the true gospel and why I am so happy!
Love you all! Thank you for the emails! I Love You MOM, Dad Connor Adin y Mia!
Elder Weaver
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