Towards the beginning of the week I had what my teacher Hermano Cook calls a "lucha con muerte" or a "fight with death". I got this crazy virus that put me down for a few days. As with every other trial a person can experience, this was a lesson in faith for me. I didn't want to ask for a blessing because I've always felt like if I'm still standing I don't need one. That is false. I struggled super hard for a few days, I could breathe, I couldn't swallow, I couldn't talk, it was horrible. Nothing was helping, and when I finally asked for a blessing, the next morning I woke up with zero symptoms. The priesthood is a great blessing to all of us, and as long as we have the faith to ask for a blessing and the faith to be healed, we will.
Later that week, my companion chastised one of my room mates, Elder Royal, about how dirty his part of the room was so he challenged him to an arm wrestle. Elder Royal won, and as such declared himself "Galactic Emperor" and started trashing the room and screaming. It was some well needed comic relief. Imagine Andy Dwyer from Parks and Rec with a deeper voice and less self control and you have Elder Royal. He is an awesome Elder and we get along well.
I've been out a Month, and I leave the MTC in 11 days, and as such we are having some of our last lessons with our investigators. One of our investigators, Diana, was having trouble with Faith and wanted to know with a surety that the church is true before she gets baptized. Incidentally, I had been thinking a lot about the third Indiana Jones movie where he has to literally take a leap of faith onto the invisible bridge haha so i asked her if she knew the movie and she did. So I told her that its really hard when we can't see whats ahead but we have to jump and God will catch us. She thought it was hilarious, especially as I described a scene from Indiana Jones in Spanish, but she committed to be baptized. I think there's a reason we always have situations where we have to trust 100% in our Father, be it getting baptized, or leaving everyone you love for 2 years on a mission, or anything. God knows the end from the beginning, and we don't, so in order to really succeed we have to lean on him, we have to let him bear all our weight. I might be wrong, but I think there's like a gap at the beginning of Indiana Jones' invisible bridge so if he just tiptoed out there he would fall, so he had to literally leap in faith. The amount of parallels between Indiana Jones and life is very eerie. Anyway, we have to have Faith and trust in God completely. And then, like Doctor Jones throwing dust out onto the bridge, we can see that the way was there the whole time. We can receive no witness until after the trial of our faith, be it clearing a subterranean canyon or getting baptized, our trials of faith are opportunities to learn. Trust in God, have faith, and he will bear you up.
Another experience that I have had several times here is receiving clear and obvious answers to prayers as a result of listening to devotionals. Since I got here, its become clear to me that the spirit here is far stronger than anywhere else. And we know that there has to be opposition in all things, so there's also a super evident presence of bad. Satan focuses on us here a lot, because he's intelligent and he knows we have a lot of potential to serve and combat misery and sin. So I've been really struggling all throughout my stay here, and I pray a lot, and I pray very specifically now. I was in a Devotional last Sunday with President and Sister Martino (the MTC President and his Wife) and they showed this quote about prayer, and I just thought " Well, I can't stop thinking about this, its really stressing me out, and I know God can help." So I just said a prayer and asked for peace and knowledge concerning this situation. I prayed really specifically and sincerely as I've been taught, and then I paid really close attention to the Devotional. I started feeling horrible, and I suddenly got all these doubts and worries and woes, but I knew that wasn't the spirit so I pushed through it and kept listening. The talk didn't answer my question, but during the closing hymn, "I Need Thee Every Hour" I got the most incredible feeling of just absolute peace, and I couldn't even sing anymore. It was super powerful, and you all can have the same experiences if you attend your meetings and pray with the intention of getting an answer. We all have a Heavenly Father who loves us more than is possible to understand, and as such he's going to help us. Trust in his knowledge and his plan, and think of him always. I know he's there, and I know he loves every one of you.
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