2014-11-3 Week... I don't actually know. It's not two years yet?

Dear All:

At times, sure, the time flies by, but it's hard to believe that it hasn't even been two months since I was set apart.

Bueno. ¡Hola hola, caracola! (Shoutout to my MTC comp, Elder Brown)

I'd like to start out with something that touched my heart. In a Sunday School lesson, in the Gospel Doctrines class, the subject was baptism. The Gospel Doctrines class is for both those taking lessons from the missionaries prior to baptism and also for recent (within a year) converts. During one of the discussions, one of the recent converts showed the class the photo of her baptism. It was a photo of her, her family, and the missionaries that converted them. She had it glued inside the front cover of her scriptures. When my comp asked her about it a little later, she showed us that in the back, she had a picture of the temple glued inside the back cover, with the message "This is the goal" written in Spanish. She and her husband will have been baptized one year ago this month. That was really beautiful to me, and I can't wait for them to experience the joy that comes with being sealed together in the temple for time and all eternity. That's the goal of missionary work. Not baptism, because that's just the gate to the path of exaltation. Eternalization... that's one of the most important messages I'm here to share. Families can be together forever. 

All right. For lack of a better segue, I'm going to just say it: From there, I'd like to move on to Dora the Explorer. I caught my companion singing quietly to himself one day, a song that seemed very (unfortunately) familiar. When confronted, we discussed it a little bit. He was surprised to learn that in the United States, it actually teaches Spanish! Apparently, everywhere else (or, at least in Argentina and Mexico) it teaches English! So, we have phrases, like, "Swiper, no swiping!" changed to, "Zorro, ¡no te lo lleves!" (Fox, don't take that!) ("¡Ah, rayos!") We also have Frosted Flakes (Azucaradas) with good ol' Tony the Tiger ("Tiger," pronounced "teeger," different than the Spanish word for tiger, "tigre"), who says, "¡Son grrrriquísimos! ("They're 'riquísimos,' they're really delicious.)

Also, Mom - What I told you, about trusting more in the Lord than in myself and my language abilities, I'd like to explain a little more. Right now, for me, it has more to do with leaps of faith. I still study like crazy, and do all I can to learn how to speak and understand the people, but that's not trusting in myself more than the Lord. I need to work hard to be worthy of the gifts of the Spirit, including the gift of tongues. The times when I would prefer to keep my mouth shut because I don't know if I'll be able to communicate what I feel I should, those are the times when I need to trust God and open my mouth anyway, because following a prompting is more important than hesitating to speak even when I don't know exactly what to say, or even if I'll be able to express myself exactly the way I want to. I still struggle with it, but right now that's what relying on the Lord more than myself means to me.

Los quiero muchísimo,

Rob