And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them. (Ether 12:27)

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Spiritual Water Boarding

Hey Everyone,

So today is only a half p-day, my real p-day will be Fridays.  I just get this one because I think they wanted me to have a break from the craziness of the first couple of days.  It's been absolutely crazy here!  The new norm for training missionaries in a second language is what my companions and I have termed as spiritual water boarding.  I'm so glad I took those 2 years of Spanish in high school because otherwise I would have no clue how any of the language works.  We've had to memorize key phrases and vocab singular to teaching the gospel, but we've had no opportunity as of yet to learn any grammar.  Yesterday all our companionships in my district (10 people, 4 girls, 6 guys who all came in at the same time and will speak Spanish) had to teach a mock investigator for 20-30 min completely in Spanish, and the investigator never spoke English.  It was brutal; two sisters were left in tears.  My companion and I kinda cheated by reading a lot from Preach My Gospel and the scriptures so we didn't have to talk as much.

My companion is Elder Mickel.  He's from Spring City, Utah (a small town) and is the quintessential farm boy.  He's slightly shorter than I am, blonde, and has the country accent (which is hysterical to hear in Spanish).  I'm glad to have him, he's completely dedicated and hard working and utterly honest.  We share our room with two other elders from our district, Elder Howard who loves to trash talk with me and Elder Dudley who is small, stalky, and reminds me a lot of Sam M. with his sarcasm.  We all get along great.  Elder Mickel is the district leader (meaning he gets the mail and reports to the zone leaders how everyone is doing) and I'm the senior companion.  It's really weird because I make sure there's no contention with us and decide where we can improve on, and then I have to report to him, the district leader, concerning it.  So we're each others bosses.

The food here is decent (y'all know I'll eat anything but I critique severely).  We get 50 min a day in the gym and I love it.  There's a track on the top floor where I run each day, but its 10 laps to a mile and the corners are really sharp so my inside leg starts to hurt.  Anyways, everything's going great and I can't wait to hear more from everyone (Dear Elder's the best).

Love,
Elder Harker
Posted by Elder Harker at

1 comment:

  1. JJanuary 15, 2012 at 10:10 PM

    Aaaahhh, you are so taking me back to the MTC days. I remember running on that track, I remember my head hurting from trying to constantly speak my language, the companionship inventories, the mail, everything. Wow, have a great time with it all. I am excited to hear more.

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