Monday,
November 17, 2014
Dear
Family,
This week was filled with a lot of lows. It has been
probably one of the hardest I will probably have on my mission. There were a
few things that really made it hard.
One is I haven’t been able to get the language down very well and teach very well as a result. I have been learning and progressing but I think it is just my patience. I have always been able to grasp onto things and learn quickly throughout my life. Sports, education, etc (Math is still stupid no matter how much I learn), for the most part I have never had to learn or do something that will take a good amount of time to learn no matter how hard I try. So that has been really hard for me. But I know this is a lesson for me to learn and God is blessing me with a challenge. Like Moses, Jonah, Daniel, Job their lives had trials and struggles but because they endured, because they got through them, they were blessed. In the Book of Mormon there is never an extended amount of time where the righteous people are without wars, contentions, or struggles. But when they are faithful and keep the commandments they are blessed and are helped. Reading and thinking about those stories have helped me maintain motivation to not give up.
Another hard thing for me was trying to
know why I was sent here. Like I said before, the language is hard which has
prevented me from being the best missionary I can be. Part of your first 12
weeks you have a program to follow and part of that is watching "The District".
When I watch it sometimes I have thought, why am I here, if I was in the United
States I could be teaching people and going hard as a missionary. Even if I
went somewhere Spanish speaking it would be easier because I am so familiar
with the language and can understand it better. But the Lord would not have
sent me here if I could not handle it and if I could not help preach the gospel
and help the people here. Sometime on my mission I will understand my purpose
here in the Marshall Islands. So I know that if I endure it and push through, I
will be blessed and will become the missionary I want to become and more
importantly the missionary that the Lord not only wants but needs me to become
to be a successful missionary.
Along with that last Wednesday I had put my
bag down to play volleyball at the chapel (all courts are outside here, no inside
court) and the Bishop ran over my bag before I could stop him, breaking my
camera and memory cards with all my photos and busting a buckle on my bag that
holds the shoulder strap on. Let's just say that I was tempted and thought
about taking a boat out in the middle of the lagoon and creating a temporary no
spirit zone (as Brother Earls calls it) and yell my frustrations out for like
10 minutes. But I have no boat, and there is no private place to go rampage
except our apartment, and I like having a nice apartment, so I was stuck with
myself and my thoughts and just sat down in the elementary school field by the
chapel and took some deep breathes, calmed down and went to go do missionary
work because we still had a few lessons left during the day and you can't teach
people the gospel being full of anger. I did not want my investigators to not
have the opportunity to hear the words of the gospel because I was having a
really bad day.
So overall this has been a big learning experience for me but it is good for
me. I know if I endure the hard things the blessings will come soon after.
After all there are still a lot of blessings I have to be thankful for. I love
you guys and hope you are doing well.
-Elder Romney
Monday, November 24,
2014
Dear Family,
This week was much better. We were able to
get a little more lessons this week than last so that was nice. I feel that we
have a few investigators that are just really close to getting baptized. The
one couple that was supposed to get married hasn't yet because they were trying
to wait for some grandparents to get here from outer islands and its been
taking forever so we just asked do you really need to wait and she said no. So
they should be getting married soon and that is exciting. We also found a really
cool guy that wants to change from being an alcoholic because he really loves
his family and wants to be the same person he was when he first got married.
But he is having a hard time so we are trying hard to work with him so that he
can eventually give up drinking and also become a great member of the church.
So as far as missionary work goes I am excited because we might finally have
some success for all the work we are putting in.
Last week there was an elder that went home
from my trainer’s intake and that was really sad. I had gotten to know him and
did a split with him so it was sad to see him have to go home so early. He
only made it 8 months. Anytime you hear about a missionary going home it is really
sad. You want all the missionaries you see and get to know to return with honor
and feel the way Alma felt when he met up with the sons of Mosiah, feeling that
joy that your peers and friends are also strong in the gospel. But that is just
life and you got to learn from it and use that experience to motivate you to
strive to always be obedient. Last week I was in a "Glass case of
Emotion!"
This week should be really good. The
missionary work should progress more and I’m going to be taught how to play the
yu-gi-oh card game so I can play with all the other elders that know how to
play. In the wise words of Ron Burgandy: "And in no way is that sad."
Love you all and if you need life advice always refer to the Ron Swanson
Pyramid of Greatness.
Elder Romney
I was not able to get Elder Romney's letter posted last week as I was out of town so it is a 2 for one week! Happy Thanksgiving to all. We are very Thankful this year to have our son on a mission learning and growing.
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