Hello everybody!
Week two has come and gone pretty quick but some days are definitely longer than others. During the classes of MTC we basically have a Spanish lesson, then we have a lesson about the Gospel, and then somewhere in the classes we combine the two and we practice with other missionaries or we have the opportunity to teach lessons with "investigators" (who are people from Mexico that act as investigators) and it is really awesome but also very difficult. Elder Phillips and myself have taught two lessons now and they both have gone great. The first one we pretty much wrote down word for word what we were going to say and just read the script, which was ok because we got to converse with the investigators, but yesterday we just had some basic points and questions that we wanted to say and it was the first time that I actually got to teach and bare my testimony with the spirit in Spanish so it was such a cool feeling!
The MTC has different checkpoints of learning and memorizing Spanish, I just finished Basic Core which I thought wasn't too bad.... but now we are on the intermediate core and my companion and myself set goals to memorize about 90 words and 20 phrases a day! When I finally realized how many words that is and my heart sank and I thought there is no way that I can do this. This was Monday and I went to bed that night with a giant knot in my stomach and I woke up feeling the same way, but I remembered one of the first things I memorized in Spanish and it says, "Un dia a la vez." which means one day at a time. I started setting goals of what words I was going to memorize throughout the day and it helped me so much. I was feeling confident and my testimony has grown and I know that through the help of our Savior Jesus Christ, all things are possible!
That brings me to the next thing I want to talk about, that with the help of Jesus Christ all things are possible. We had a missionary devotional last night and all my fears about memorizing and the fear of never going to be able to learn this language, all went away. In the devotional, a member of the Seventy (I can't remember his name) said, "Drop the need to be perfect and understand that God just needs us to try." That's all we can do is just give all 100% of our effort and trust that with the help of Jesus Christ. I uploaded a picture of something I drew and it's called the "Effort Scale" the first bar shows what we would be if we weren't allowed to accept Jesus Christ's help. I realized that if we give all of our effort but don't rely on Jesus Christ to help us, we probably only it make it 20% of what we need to be to achieve eternal life. But in the second bar, it shows the same thing that our effort only takes us about 20%, but through Jesus Christ's Atonement, He will carry us the rest of the way, all we need to do is try. This might be a little overwhelming to think that we have to give 100% effort 24/7, but later in the devotional he said, "Jesus is standing with open arms to revive, forgive, and help us." This is so comforting to me just to think that Jesus is wanting to help us receive eternal life, He wants us to return to live with Him and Heavenly Father again. He has provided away and that is through Jesus Christ's Atonement. I'm so grateful for this knowledge that I have and the peace that it brings me to know that as long as we try, as long as we give 100% effort in everything we do, we will be saved. I love this gospel and love my Savior and know that through His Atonement, we can receive eternal life and have joy!
I love you all and am grateful for each of your prayers and examples to me! Have a great week! Love you all.
Love Elder Reiley
Pictures:
1. "Effort Scale"
2. Got to see the brothers for the weekend.
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