Hey Friends and Family!
Well this week really had it's up's and downs but I can sure say looking back on it, it just feels like it had it's ups and really ups.. if that makes sense.. haha. First I just wanted to thank everyone for the letter I got yesterday! Seriously came at the best moment. I love hearing all the different things that my nieces and nephews have to say. It brings a smile to my face right away. Thanks for each chipping in a little to the message. I love hearing how all of you are doing and can't believe you're all in California! Sounds like it's been a blast. Just make sure you save some party left in your souls so we can do awesome stuff when I get back. hah. Okay... well out of all of the things i've learned I feel like this week I really learned something that I feel (to me) is really interesting. It sort of answers the question that I asked a few weeks back about "how do you change/how do you know if you've changed." But before i get to that I'll answer a few of the questions that you asked in the letter you send me. Well at this point we're teaching all of our lessons in spanish and they're going really good. We have a progressive investigator (who is our teacher) that we've been teaching for like 4 weeks and he always came up with excuses why he couldn't get baptised like, "I just don't know enough yet" and that stuff. But yesterday we finally got him to commit to be baptised. I know it's mostly for practice purposes but our teacher takes it seriously and really acts like an investigator each time, so when he finally said "yes" it was so sweet! I knew it wasn't real, but the amazing thing is you could still feel the spirit. I can't wait until that happens for real. Mmm. what else. I am learning all of the different parts of spanish. Not just church words. But, my "church words vocabulary" has really grown since i've been here (seeing that I didn't know any before). Ummm the spanish isn't really comparable to high school because we usually have 6 hours of class a day and it's all taught in spanish, plus, we are learning spanish, in spanish. So it's just really accelerated, plus, we're missionaries, so we have Gods help.
Okay well before I use all my time on intruductions I wanted to let you all know a little about what I learned this week that I thought was so cool. Last sunday in the devotional (the devotionals are like my favorite things ever) a guy showed us some church commercials that he had make that i think are called "homefronts" or something. Maybe when you get home you can watch some on LDS.org. But at the end of each commercial there are some really good one-liners that i've been thinking about. My two favorite are: "When everything says you can't, believe in the part of you that says you can." Sometimes I feel like there's A Whole bunch of things that say I can't but I'm learning from the experience here and through the Lord that I can and you all can too. I just love that phrase. The other one I really liked too (they were all good but.. yeah) is "it's not who you aren't, it's who you are, and being yourself is being great." Sometimes, well actually a lot, we see people we think are completely awesome and want to change ourselves to become like them. I realized that that's different then having role-models. For instance you all are my role-models, Seriously. But, that doesn't mean I'm trying to be You. I thought it was cool to think about and I've definately learned a lot from pondering it. I thought this stuff was great but this wasn't even my favorite thing. When I learned the most was on tuesday in the Devotional, and afterwards when we got to share our thoughts on it with the district.
Seeing that I'd thought a lot about how to improve yourself, this came basically as an answer to my prayers. I've heard people say that you can't change the way you are, because God made you that way for a reason. The thing is, we can change who we are, because "Each of us have a Spark of Diety in us." We're children of God and we have the potential to become like Him. I was thinking this was awesome, but at the same time it was kinda vague because I was never really sure how that change happened, but luckily for me, I learned a lot more that night. I learned more about "Sanctification". To me it's basically realizing who we are right now, who we want to be, and trying to get to that point. But even more than that, it's the process that we turn from (fill in the blank about yourself) .... people, to truly becoming Sons and Daughters of God. This was super awesome to me because something a (i think) prophet said was "of the two fold purpose of the mission is 1. to Do the work of the Lord. and 2. For the Sanctification of the Missionary. And the second one is every bit as important as the first." I realized that this mission is My sanctification time. We all can have these times and I'm sure they come all throughout life but it's times like these that help us to progress and to learn. You don't grow very much when you don't have resistance. Sometimes we resist it but we need resistance to grow. The experiences we have in our lives are comparable to a crucible, how it's the way we are purified and become the best we can be. This is something he said that Really hit me because it's so true.
"Sometimes we don't get what we want no matter how noble the desire, but if we do our best, if we do what's right, the Lord will always give us what we need."
I know this is true. We need to be challenged, and sometimes we think we know what we need to take out of it but if we will just leave it to the lord he'll give us what we need.
I won't share too much more about this but I've decided to embrace my challenges a little differently.
Right before this Brother spoke, his wife spoke for like 3 minutes and one of the only things she said was, "Always try to do the hard thing." I like this, and want to make it part of myself. You all know me and seeing that you do you know that it hasn't always been my thing to specifically do the hard thing. I regret that but I know the the rewards from doing the hard thing is always so much more than the easy thing. In thinking about this the first person that came to my mind was Dad. We all know that that's always been his forte because he's so good at doing that. I then thought about the family and how each of you have done that too. Thanks for getting me on the path where I can do the hard thing now. It just reminds me of that saying, "no matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back."
Well i practically have no time and there was more I wanted to say, but Instead of saying it I'll just write the scripture and see if you guys can figure out why I love it or maybe even learn to love it for yourselves. I found it because i was reading in 3rd Nephi (thats where i am in my study) and Jesus Christ says to the nephites something about "Take up your cross" so I looked into it a little more and this is the scripture I found that I really like. Don't forget to read the joseph smith translation, just add that onto the end of the verse. Matt 16:24.
I love you all so much and (besides the stress) love writing you how i'm doing. I love to hear from you and wanted to say have fun! I'll try to get you some pictures this week.
With much love,
Elder Jacob Turner Stucki
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