Getting out of Neutral

 Hello everyone!

This week was definitely a change. On Tuesday morning I said goodbye to my dear friend and companion Elder Bretey. Definitely a water works and felt like I was saying goodbye to a family member. He truly changed my life and I am so thankful! Luckily we have an eternity of being friends haha. 

Also on Tuesday I met my new companion Elder Lopez and finished my training. He has 17 months but truly treats me like an equal! It has been a blast with Elder Lopez. He was really scared of being companions with me because some missionaries think I am a robot with rules. But we quickly clarified that I have a personality and love doing missionary work for the right reasons. He is super creative when it comes to missionary work so it has been really fun learning unique ways to approach the work. Definitely the hardest part of leaving my training is that my Spanish has to be on 24/7! We talk solely in Spanish and I have to teach at least ½ of the lesson. Both of these were incredibly difficult, but I have begun to adapt haha.

We had a super successful week though and found solid new people in teaching! One of them is Arely and she is an English teacher. She has asked me to teach in English because she feels like she is losing her English abilities. At first I was hesitant, but my companion was down for it so we have been teaching in English to Arely. It has been super strange being able to say whatever I want to say. She has asked us to teach her everyday and she is progressing SO FAST! Please pray for her though!

A family I have not talked about in these emails but is awesome is Arlett and Veronica. They both seemed to be progressing at a great rate, but Veronica informed us that she never wants to be baptized and even if God tells her to be baptized she would not. It is super hard because she says she knows it is the true church but she can not leave the tradition of her parents in another church. It broke my heart to hear this! Please keep her in your prayers! That her heart can be softened and that she will come to understand eternal families more fully!

Spiritual Thought:

This week I have been thinking a lot about neutrality. In my life before and on my mission I have seen people who start to be content with their lives. They say “I am doing just fine. I do not need to work any harder” “My life is good enough right now” or “I am a good enough missionary. I have obtained leadership positions and have baptized people according to my current abilities”. This vexatious habit to become neutral in your eternal progression is devastating! I have started to compare it to an analogy of cars. A few years back in a general conference Elder Spencer  Kimball talked about how “Life is an uphill battle!” We are currently going uphill. So what happens when you put your car in neutral while going uphill? You start going downhill faster than you can imagine. The sad thing is we do not realize how far we have fallen until we look back to the top of the hill where our savior and redeemer Jesuschrist stands. I have set a new goal of finding my neutrality. Things that I have begun to be complacent with. I also have started to plan how I will react to different neutralities that may come in my future. The scariest of all neutralities is our spiritual ones. It is easy to say things such as “I know the Bible well enough” or  “I have read Preach my Gospel enough times” or  “My Spanish is good enough that I do not need to rely on the gift of tongues”. All of these put limits on our spiritual horizons. I challenge you to find areas in your life that you have put in neutral and put them in forward gear through the help of our brother Jesus Christ!