I Am Not Alone In This Journey

Oh my goodness where is the time going?? The days are passing in a blink of an eye and the weeks are flying by .I am desperately trying to stop the clock. I thought that 6 weeks was going to be way too long of a stay at the MTC but after realizing just how slow I am at learning the language, I am clinging onto every second that I have here. These next 3 and a half weeks are my life line. When the time runs out, I will be thrown into the country with only a few Spanish words to my name. But hey, what's life without a Little adventure?? What's a mission without a few challenges?? I will prepare myself over the next 3 and a half weeks to be ready to hit the ground running.              

This week was different. So much happens in just one day that it is hard to pick and choose the things I want to tell you all about. Maybe I'll just give you all a rundown of a typical day at the MTC and tell you the good stuff as I go. Well my days start at 6 in the morning. I wake up and have to try to remember that I sleep on a top bunk bed, and there is quite a ways to get to the floor… sadly I forget that bit of information in the wee hours of the morning and I more often than not drop from my bed and crumple to the floor. But it wakes me up nicely!! We then pray study and get ready and rush off to breakfast. Next we go to grammar lessons, teaching lessons, study, and preparing to teach 30 min long lessons to fake investigators. In the middle of all that, we get lunch, but its straight back to the classrooms until gym and sports. I CRAVE that short time. It is the only time where I get to leave my prison cell, see the sunlight, and breathe fresh air. It is a time for me to work out and let the stress and frustration go. I'm used to playing sports, but when you play sports with sisters who play like a bunch of girls, it gets boring really fast. I like to take the games seriously and play hard but the other sister would rather run from the balls and go smell flowers or gossip about boyfriends instead…. So now I just work out with Hermana Lee, who by the way is probably my favorite sister out here.

After sports we come back and shower, go to dinner then back to the cell for 2 and a half more hours of lessons. When it's done, I hit the showers one last time, do what I need to do, and lights out by 10:30. There is hardly time in the day to breathe. Fridays we get to do service projects, and Saturdays we get to proselyte at this huge gigantic park for 2 hours and it is a blast. You heard me right, we are set loose with testimonies blazing and Books of Mormon in hand ready to find and teach as many people as we can in our broken Spanish. Last week at the park we started talking to this lady in Spanish and when she saw the book we were carrying and our name tags she was ready to peace out. After I greeted her in Spanish, she said sorry I don't speak any Spanish, so I immediately said, "That's great, NEITHER DO I!!" and then I sat down on the bench next to her put an English Book of Mormon in her lap and said now you are stuck with me for the next ten minutes, let's talk. The poor lady thought that she could get out of talking with us but too bad for her I speak English fairly well. I love going to the park. Thursdays of course are my p-day. They start off with an early morning temple session, emailing time, and then off to explore Madrid. This is my life now, and I love it.

I have one last thing I want to share before I run out of time. The mission is hard. Even at the MTC. You face exhaustion, frustration, stress and a million other emotions in the space of one day. You get beaten down and kicked around every day, and when the day is finally over and you think that you are safe, you have to wake up the next morning to go through it all over again. And anyone who knows me knows that I get extremely frustrated when things get hard for me. So imagine my feelings when I am not learning Spanish as quickly as my companion. It drives me nuts and it is hard. Frustrations on the mission is amplified 10 fold. You start to question yourself and your self motivation and determination disappears quickly. When it gets hard, you learn what it is to doubt, and to be afraid. You feel inadequate , inexperienced and just not good enough, as if you are being set up to fail. These feelings are the storms of life in the mission. When you reach that soaking wet and windblown state, you learn to fall to your knees and approach the Lord. In these moments of my mission where I feel as if I am going to drown, I turn to the Lord and beg him to save me. (Matthew 14: 30) When we have done all that we can, God picks us up and he does all that we can't. I am not alone in this journey. I know I can do hard things. I can overcome ANYTHING because His son overcame EVERYTHING. I will let Christ guide my life and allow him to change me because I know that he will be there to help me. He won't do it for me, and he won't make me do in alone either. But he will do it with me to lighten my load.

The mission is rough, but sometimes the Lord lets the storm rage so that he can comfort His children. I love you all and hope to hear from some of you soon. Talk to you next week!!!

Love,

Hermana Stilson