The Game

First of all, I just lost the game. And you might have as well. ;D

In the last year or so, I have been trying to make a lot of changes in my life, to become better than I was. And I have improved, I think.

One major area that I am still working on though is social skills. I have at times been pretty social, and I usually don't have any problem talking to new people. The area I struggle with is something that I have called "the game" for a while now. And recently I have begun wondering if I was mistaken in calling it that.

First of all, let me describe the game. The game is where you work hard to, basically, manipulate people. You pay extreme attention to how the people around you react to things that you say and what you do, and then you decide how to react based on that. For instance, you might talk to some one and see how willing they are to talk to you. And depending on how long and about what they are willing to talk to you about, you make a judgement about how they feel about you, and use that to decide how to approach them in the future. For instance, if it is someone that you like, but who seems unwilling to talk to you for any extended period of time, you could decide to give up on it, or do something to get past their unwillingness.

Now, earlier I said that the game is basically about manipulating people. And this is where I think that I was mistaken in calling it the game. I really think that it is because I called it a game, that I thought it was about manipulating people that I have had so much trouble.

I think that I have been concentrating on the wrong thing. I was so worried about trying to understand others that I forgot to be myself much more often than I should have. It is something that I am going to try to be better at as time goes by. Wish me luck! *crosses fingers*

Week two at the MTC

Things are good here. Feeling a bit sick, but it is just a bully cold. It snowed the other day and in the bathroom after Gym that day, there was basically a choir singing Christmas songs from the showers. One of our Elders objected, but no one really minded him.

Early this week Hermano Hickman was teaching our class and he told us a really funny and awesome quote. He was talking about how sometimes when they were on the streets of Peru they would just call a bunch of people over and talk to them all about the gospel at the same time, and then he said: "Ïf you catch fire with enthusiasm people will come from miles to watch you burn."

It was awesome.

Also, I got some cookies the other day, chocolate caramel butterscotch walnut chocolate. (Yes, chocolate twice!) They were very good. I don't know who sent them to me, since there was no return address or note, but thank you whoever it was! Also, I apparently have a new package waiting for me as I type, but I don't know what it is yet.

Mail is still fun. I love hearing from all of you! It makes me happy to know a little bit about what is happening in each of your lives! Sorry that some of you have been waiting so long for replies! Our P-Day is on Monday, and I got most of your letters Monday evening! (You will need to send it by Friday if you want me to get it in time to write on Monday.)

Umm. Oh! Got our flight plans the other day! It is official, we are leaving on the 25th, the day before Thanksgiving! Pretty crazy! And we are taking three different flights to get there. We have to be ready to leave at 3:00 AM! I'm panicking a little bit, but that is just me. And the fact that I still know very little about Spanish.

Quick note on the subject of Spanish. I'm learning it, slowly. We have been praying in Spanish since pretty much our second day here! Is is kind of crazy how fast we are all learning it actually.

I'm running out of time, but there is one more thing that I wanted to talk about. This is from my journal:
There are always some special moments though. For instance, on Saturday nights our district has a testimony meeting, and it is truly a powerful experience. The spirit is so strong there that we don't notice our Earthly needs. We don't notice if we are hot or thirsty. We don't notice any of that, because one after another our brothers are standing up there and they are telling us what they know to be true. The are standing there, bold and full of the power and love of God when they say that they know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. When they say that the know that God answers their prayers, there is no doubt in their eyes, there is no fear in their countenances. There is no disbelief in that room. And that is something special.

The Boy with a Sponge for a Heart

A fair while ago there lived a young boy. He was small when I first remember him. Dark hair. Freckles and a smile. That is how I remember him.

He lived in a good home with a family that loved him and cared for him. And he loved them back. They would play games together. Go to the zoo. Feed the ducks. All sorts of things that you can imagine good families doing. And I think that he smiled because he knew that he was loved. And his sponge heart soaked up that love and grew large and tender. Soft. Open.

But time touches and twists everything, especially young boys. And so the boy grew, and though he still smiled, I don't remember them being on his face so often as he grew older and taller and stronger. Though his family still loved him, his heart began to dry out. I don't know why exactly. I don't know exactly when it started. I think back to all the time that I spent with him in those early years, and there was no great change in him. His smile just seemed to fade away, and his heart began to shrink a little at a time. And then I left for a while. I traveled to places that don't matter now, and that I can't really remember much about anyway. And when I came back, the little boy was gone, and in his place was a shell with a shriveled, dry, cracked sponge for a heart. It wasn't because he wasn't loved anymore. But because he had stopped letting love in. Because he had stopped caring.

I approached him, this boy who once had a smile, and I asked him, "What happened to your smile? What happened to your heart?"

He looked at me, his eyes open but absent, no smile nor frown on his face. "Who are you?" He asked back. "I don't remember you. I don't remember a smile. I don't remember any heart but the one I have."

I then wondered if anything could be done for this once boy. For this shell that I saw before me. I left him then, but kept an eye on him for some time afterwards. I watched as he made the motions of living, all the while unaware that he wasn't.

And then something began to happen. He met someone a little bit different. At first he wasn't sure what to do. He didn't know how to respond. But a little bit at a time his smile began to return to him, and a little bit at a time his shriveled heart began to become damp and pliable. Time marched on a little more and I saw him there, half way between living and not. I watched as he began to realize that something was wrong. I watched as he began to realize that he wasn't what he once was. That something was wrong with his life.

And, in time, he realized at least a part of it. He realized that he wanted to be better than he was. That he had things to do, and that he wasn't doing them. He realized that he had been asleep, and he was determined to wake up.

And so he set about waking up. He tried to reach out to those people around him. He tried to get to know them. And as he did this his heart grew moist, and then began to swell. His smile began to return. But there is something that he didn't know. That with a smile comes a frown. With laughter comes tears. And so as he began to live once again, and as his heart began to grow and reopen, he was sometimes caught by surprise at the feelings he had. At the joy and the pain, and how quickly they could exchange places. He was often confused as he tried his best to show his love for others. As he tried to help and not hurt them. And time and again he slipped, and time and again he felt like he failed.

But he tried to learn from the pain and the joy. He tried to grow a bit more each time. He tried to do the best that he could. And as I watch him now, as he continues to live a bit more each day. As he cries and laughs and smiles and frowns. I hope that he will try everyday to be a bit more alive. To be willing to keep his heart open in times of sorrow. To let the love of others fill his sponge heart and make it swell.

I hope this, not only because I've seen what he is like without it, but because that boy with a sponge for a heart is me.

And as I look forward with that hope close to my heart I wonder. What about when I look back on myself as I am now, with years more experience in my life? What will I see? Will I see a boy with eyes open be lacking knowledge? Or will I see that my eyes were not as open as I thought? I don't know. But I hope that I won't look back at it with shame or sadness.

Happy birthday Mom!

Happy happy birthday, from all of us to you!

We wish it was our birthday, so we could party to!

I love you Mom! Have a great birthday!

Hello from the MTC!

Hello everyone! Here I am, reporting to you from the MTC! Everything is good. They keep us really busy, but in a lot of ways, compared to the two weeks before going into the MTC, it is like a vacation! For one, we have about an hour every day to play! I've played volleyball for the first time in something like a year! It is great! And not only that, but there is also time set apart to sleep. That "eight hours of sleep" thing is still a myth, but I'm still getting more than I did for a couple weeks. (We have to get up at 6:10 so that we can take showers in time for breakfast.)

And speaking about breakfast, the food here is pretty good! Three meals a day is awesome! And we can eat as much as we want! My companion says that I eat more than anyone he has ever seen who is my size. I take that as a compliment. I do feel kind of rushed when eating though. 45 minutes is just not long enough for lunch and dinner!

The days are busy, and so I do feel tired a lot, but I think that is more a factor of the fact that I arrived sleep deprived than anything else.

My companion is great. I actually met him before when I was getting stuff from Missionary Mall!

I do miss my friends and family though. I was writing in my journal and I was comparing one of my MTC teachers to Bro. Potts, but I couldn't remember Bro. Potts name! I looked around to ask someone his name, but there was no one there who would know it!

I dreamed like crazy the first couple days here, which was cool.

Mail is fun here. Only our District Leader can pick up the mail, so whenever we see him with mail in his hands we say "Mail! Mail!" It's like the gulls in Finding Nemo, but I don't know that anyone else has made that connection yet.

Another frustrating thing: Qwerty keyboards. If this was typed on my laptop it would be much longer, but I'm out of time now! Love you all! Don't die!

Sounding Different?

Just so you all know, I wrote this before leaving on my mission, and scheduled it to post. I have a few more that are coming, through the beginning of the new year too, so don't worry, I'm not breaking the rules to post on my blog! I have also asked my Mom to post some parts of my letters on my blog, so look for those as well. :D

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So, I was able to be part of an interesting discussion on the way to a wedding reception the other day. We were talking about accents, and eventually got talking about words like bowl and bull, which tend to sound fairly similar when said by people who are from the same place as I am. Anyway, it reminded me of another comparison that I have wondered about before. Grey and gray.

Whenever I say one, I think about what it looks like, and so I think that it seems like they sound different to me. But I wonder if they actually do sound different, or if I am just imagining it, because I know which one I am supposed to be saying. I think that I need to do some experimentation sometime. Probably with me recording myself saying them, and then seeing if I can determine which one I am saying. Could be interesting!

An outpouring of love!

These last two weeks have been truly amazing! I don't know that I have ever felt such a strong outpouring of love toward me in my life.

I think that first time that I felt this way was on the night of the big dinner that I made on the 21st. I invited a few of my friends over, and made them a ton of food! And you know what, just being able to be there, surrounded by amazing people that I love was very powerful. I don't think that I really said much that night, but I felt like I had a huge smile on my face as I was able to listen to my friends talk and have fun. Just having them there I really felt a huge sense of love.

And then there was Sunday the 25th. I spoke in my homeward that day, and I saw friends and family that I hadn't seen in a long time. And they were all there for me! I don't know that I have ever felt quite so humbled before, or quite so loved. I really don't feel like I deserve so much love, from so many amazing people!

As I said to everyone's favorite sister missionary the other day,

Yeah, it was fun to have so many of my friends and family be there, and show their support for me. I seriously don't think that I have ever felt so loved. I really do tear up pretty much any time I think about it. :D It is actually something that I have been thinking about a lot. Because really, I don't feel like I deserve so much love from so many great people. But it seems like that is the point. We don't really deserve it. But we are loved anyway. It is like how our Heavenly Father loves us unconditionally. We don't earn his love, and in a lot of ways, with us being the imperfect people that we are, we don't really deserve it. But he loves us anyway, and I think that that makes it mean so much more!

And then last night was the real final goodbye I think. I went and played Rock Band with my friends and little sister, and it was great! I hope that I can remember that experience forever, because of how happy it made me.

I hope that all of my friends and my family know that I love them. That I care about what happens in there lives, and that I think they are amazing!