One month

 7/24/15

Hey everyone!  I can’t believe that I have been here for a month already.  It’s so crazy time is flying.  Everything is going good I guess.  Yesterday I had a slight mental breakdown in the morning because I just didn’t understand Spanish but during gym time I was running and praying and I felt better.  I felt Heavenly Father bless me with peace in my heart and then later still bless me when during class after lunch hermano Rockwood talked about his mission.  I realized I know enough Spanish to get my point across.  I’m not good at Spanish, but I can say enough to help someone.  I realized that I would be ok if I didn’t learn Spanish any better than I know it right now as long as I am able to help bring people closer to God and Jesus.  This realization brought a lot of peace to me as well.  I am still studying hard to learn Spanish though.  Conjugating the verbs is killing me.  Está bien.  This is Sapaque.  He is from Guatemala.  He helps me with my Spanish and I help him with English.

So I have a kind of cool story.  Elder grant and I decided that we would only email it to people and not tell it to people in the MTC because we didn’t want to sound like or end up bragging.  So we our had our last lesson with Marco yesterday.  We were both really sad because we both really like Marco.  We went in prepared to teach the 10 commandments but right after we prayed I got prompted to ask him what he wanted to learn about.  In my head I was like that will leave us high and dry because he will say anything other than the commandments.  But I asked anyway.  He said he wanted to learn about why we need to be clean from sin (our last lesson was on how we can be).  I thought of Alma 5 (but at the time I didn’t know where the chapter was just how I had shaded it) so I went looking for it really quick.  I couldn’t find it but came upon 3 Nephi 27.  We decided to read 13-22 with him and talk about it.  We both kept asking inspired questions and it was going really well.  It came to the point where the lesson was almost over and Marco was crying a little bit.  He told us that because of us he felt Gods love in his life more.  I felt prompted to ask him if he was a member of the church (the TRC investagatores are paid people so they don’t have to be members.)  I thought it would make the lesson seam really fake but I felt really strong that I should ask him.  So I did in the best possible way I could think of.  He smiled and said no but because he could tell Elder Grant and I tried so hard to learn Spanish to teach him and cared so much about him he actually became interested in what we had to say.  He said because of us he started taking the lessons outside of the MTC, and would compare what we said to what the other missionaries said to him.  He said our lesson last week and the week before helped him to see that god loves him and he talked about how he feels clean when he is with us.  He then started to cry and said he is being baptized on August 27th.  By this point all three of us had tears in our eyes and Marco thanked us for loving him and caring about him enough to try so hard to help him.  He said we were the reason he wanted to become closer to Jesus and our Heavenly Father.  After the lesson elder Grant and I found a quiet corner and thanked God that we had the opportunity to help Marco.  I felt the spirit so strong when we were praying that by the end both Elder Grant and I were crying again hahahaha.  It was so awesome!  I am so happy for Marco!  He truly is a child of God and I know that Heavenly Father loves him.  I have seen and felt it.  It was truly an amazing experience. 

 I am so thankful for everyone who helped push me to go on a mission.  And i am so thankful for the power of the atonement in my life so that I can return to live with my Father in Heaven once again.  This gospel is so amazing and through this experience I really see how we are not the teachers.  The Holy Spirit is the teacher and we are merely a tool for it to operate though.  I am so thankful for my opportunity to serve the Lord.  I love you all so much!  Thank you so much for the amazing examples you have been to me.  Each and every one of you have touched my life and helped me to be the person I am today.  For that I thank you.  

Elder Pachner III

left to right: Wadsworth, Frei, Grant, Pachner outside Provo Temple.