Week 3 recap

So this week went by too fast. It seems like the days just blend together and that not much happens even though every day is a 16-hour day.. I'm loving the language more and more each day and getting better as well. Its gone from Spanglish in class with some Spanish and some English to almost all Spanish. This week I started my journey of reading "El Libro de Mormon" en Español. At first it was hard. In fact I read the first chapter of First Nephi like 4 times before I finally started to understand it. But as soon as I got past the first chapter it's coming more and more easy each time. I have the Spanish and English versions open to the same spots and I read Spanish. Once I find a word or phrase that's not familiar to me I either look up in a dictionary the meaning or read the English one to get the gist of the sentence. It's a very slow process but it's amazing to see that I can finally understand probably 80% of the words I'm reading. It's amazing to see what's possible with faith, a lot of obedience, and oraciónes (that's "prayers" in Spanish btw).

Every hour or so during language study we get 10 minutes to play futbolito (fusball) which gets intense sometimes. Teachers join in and let's just say some of the teachers are too good at this game. Like lobbing the ball and heading goals... it's crazy. This was our first Wednesday without getting new Elders in our zone, which is good because our zone is the biggest in the CCM with 52 people. Sacrament meeting is always awesome and I love my zone tons. One of my new best buddies (he went to BYU but I still manage to love him) ran track for BYU. This "kid" is over six foot extremely athletic. Can pick up any sport and just "run" with it.... hahaha he's a runner... if you're wondering why I'm talking about him I'll let you know in a second. We have been eating lots of meals together, hanging out on P-day and even going to devotionals together. He's been having a difficult time with why he's out here. Like why he gave up the girls and the school and the job for this. He was struggling with the language and just not having a good time. A reason why he was struggling was because this super human among men was a couple hundredths of a second away from national records in high school track and also the same away from Olympic times. This guy is fast. So you can see why he was struggling with being out here, let alone leaving your family and girls and school and of course. more girls..

But then on Tuesday night we watched a video that I had seen before but he hadn't or at least not in a while. It was about a rugby player who was going to be selected for one of the best teams in the world. but, he gave up this chance to serve an LDS mission. My friend was watching and thinking oh my gosh, this is exactly like what I'm going through. After the two year mission, this rugby player became one of the world's greatest rugby players and he knew that had he not served a mission he would not have gotten close to that. Right before this video this Elder asked for a blessing from me. He had had a really tough day and just needed some help. In my blessing I felt the urge to tell him that he would receive an answer to the questions he had about being out on a mission. And this was just 30 minutes before the devotional..... it was amazing after that blessing to watch him sit in the auditorium and watch this video. He looked at me and said I know this is the answer you talked about in your blessing.. and now since then he has had the time of his life. He's doing amazing at Spanish and still dominates in the court, field, or table. This was truly an amazing experience to have and I'm glad that because of the increased sensitivity to the Holy Ghost while surrounded by all people with my common goals morals and standards I was able to give him an experience that most likely kept him from leaving the MTC.

I love the Spirit that at the place and this was a huge strengthener for my testimony (: hope all is well and "save me piece of that corn, save me a piece of that corn for later."

Love,

Elder Babcock

Sunset at the Mexico MTC