February 10, 2014 (day 69)

Hola hola hola!!

This week flew by. Its crazy that it is already Monday. Anyway, usually I bring my journal to the ciber to write down what I did during the week, but I forgot it, so I´m not going to remember much haha. But I´ll try my best.

The week started off good because we found some new people to teach! My companion and I just seemed to be recieving a ton of blessings. We have been trying to be really obedient in everything that we do. Something that I have learned this week, and really has actually seemed to keep showing up in everything I hear and study is that we have to consecrate ourselves to the Lord. What does that mean? I have been thinking about it all week. As a missionary I can have a lot of success if I am obedient. In life in general we can be successful if we obey the rules. But to consecrate our lives to the Lord is more than obedience. Its more than spending every minute of the day trying to invite people unto Christ. To consecrate our lives to the Lord is to accept the Lords will as our own. I can walk around all day spreading the gospel and think in my head the whole time, I don{t really want to do this, but I know I should. I could think that, or I could think, anything that the Lord wants me to do is what I want to do. 

That isn´t an easy thing. I definitely have to improve on that a lot. But what I have learned is that life is about change. We are always becoming better or we are getting worse. There is no stopping change. So we need to continually strive to be better. We need to continually humble ourselves and accept the will of the Lord, or we will not benefit from any of the good things we do. It is one thing to do something good for another person, and it is another to do it for them because you love them and love the Lord. I love the scripture that says that says that we can serve and serve and serve, but if we don´t have charity, or if we don´t love the people we are serving, it does us personally no good whatsoever. Something I think every single person can improve on.

So anyway, I really don´t remember much of this week haha. We have a baptismal date! For the 28th of February with a lady named Jimena. But we think she is going to move to Bolivia like this week, so we are hoping to be able to pass on a reference to the missionaries in the place she is going to live. Other than that we have really just been searching and searching for new people. 

I have to play the piano in church, and it is so bad haha. I mess up so much, but the people don´t judge me. I don´t think haha. I hope we have some time today so I can just go to the church and practice for a while. 

Oh we just had an activity with our zone this morning where a member of the Stake Presidency came and talked to us and I got my mail! I got like 10 letters haha, and a package :-) Thank you thank you for the scripture case and pictures and candy. It is muchly appreciated. 

Anyway, I´m going to have to be better next week and let you know what happens during my week. I don{t remember much if I don´t have it written down. Ooh I was going to say that I keep seeing the dog that bit me and it keeps trying to attack us, so we just throw rocks at it. My companion is really scared of it haha, but we haven´t really had any more problems with that.

haha Funny story I just thought of, every day that we see Pedro and Lorena, Pedro says, no habían corbatas para hombre?? that means, there weren´t any ties for men?? haha they all say I have little girl ties. They just don´t know what real style is. I think I´m going to give my pink tie to Pedro when I leave, which I hope isn´t for a long time!

Well that is pretty much what I have to say haha. sorry I didn´t have much info on the week, but I will be better next week! I love you tons!!!!! Until next week! Chauito!

Con mucho amor, Elder Marchant

This was a prank they played on me in Family Home Evening where you touch the bottom of a plate, but its dark in the room, so you don´t see that you have stuff on your fingers, and then they tell you to rub your face. It was a pretty obvious prank, so I figured it out and wanted to get it all over to be funny. Haha everyone thought I would be really mad or embarrassed, but I knew all along, so it was pretty funny.