OH, the mission...

Hello hello.
Well, this week didn´t have much going on, but we did have Zone Conference on Friday. It was kind of a surprise for us because our leaders forgot to tell us and we found out when we went to lunch with Presidente and he said," See you Friday!" Then he found out that our leaders hadn´t told us and I think they got in trouble. Oops. But Zone Conference was really good and my Presidente is really cool. It´s funny because he´s super cool and funny and laidback as a person, but his view of the mission is that you should suffer and sacrifice in order to get any blessings. I think I probably need him as a President and that´s why I came to this mission. He´s teaching me how not to be lazy. Don´t worry... I´m not a lazy missionary, but he´s teaching me to sacrifice more and take all the laziness out of my life. As a regular member of the church before the mission, I was pretty lazy in regards to how much effort I put forth in my calling (just enough to not feel bad) and reading my scriptures every night (I did it, but just to be able to tell myself that I did it). But now I¨m learning that Heavenly Father deserves more from us. Prez is right...we really should sacrifice more if we want the blessings.
He talked about Elder Cristofferson´s talk, Reflections on a Consecrated Life, from this past conference. He said we should use more of what the General Authorities say because it can really help us answer the questions we have in the mission and in normal life. It´s true though. I´ve been reading the talks from the April Conference and every time I open to read, it´s exactly what I needed to hear. Presidente also told us about when he was on his mission and he was called to be Branch President in a tiny town where everyone had stopped going to church because of a terrible scandal with a missionary. He said that he read Ether 12:27 and finally realized that he couldn´t do things on his own, that he really needed Christ. So the next day in my study, I studied that scripture and all the cross references that it had. I read a ton about weaknesses and why we have them and how we need to let them be strengthened by Christ. I think it helped me realize that weaknesses are a reminder from our Heavenly Father that we need Him. It´s not that he wants us to feel bad. He wants us to get better, to overcome these weaknesses, but we don´t need to do it alone. We have Jesus Christ to strengthen us. We can do anything and overcome all our weaknesses if we let Christ strengthen us. Maybe easier said than done, but it´s definitely something that I´m trying to do. I am very aware of my weaknesses, but sometimes I focus on how many I have or how much more I need to do instead of letting my weaknesses remind me that I need to go to Christ and let him help me.
Oh, and at Zone Conference, I met an Elder Wartena from Orem, Utah. I asked him if he knew the Judd Family and he said that Jake was his seminary teacher. I said," No way! He´s my primo!" (It´s kinda hard to switch back and forth from Spanish and English so it usually comes out as a mezcla...oops, a mix.) He thinks pretty highly of him and it was another evidence of how small the world really is. Also, my district leader, Elder Horton is from Bountiful, Utah and is neighbors with Scott Nielson, one of my favorite people that I met at BYU. He couldn´t believe it when I said I knew him and his little brother and he made me describe them thorougly (tall, really low voice, went on a mission to Texas, super funny) before he would believe me. Then he got weirded out and walked away. Oh elderes...
Well, family, this week is the last week of the transfers so in the next email, we´ll find out who my new companion is. I´m pretty sure I´m going to get a new companion... it´ll be interesting if I don´t. Oh, and yesterday Hna. LaPray and Hna. Tingey had to come to a conference in Bahía so they came to stay at my house!! It´s been six months since I´ve seen them and it was so good to talk to them again and hear how much better all of our Spanish has gotten. They´re so great and it really helps so much to have good examples in the mission and know that there are other people who are trying too. I´m glad that I´m on a mission and I know that I´m learning a ton from this experience. I hope I can help someone besides myself along the way too.... :) Thanks for everything!
¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡LES AAAAMMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! (That´s how Hna. Abarzúa signs her emails...it´s very Latina)
Hna. Seegmiller