Week Eleven: Rotting Fruit

Whenever I sit down and try to listen to the spirit, the first prompting I've started getting is "Clean up your desk. Get organized. clean the apartment" So I started doing that. Our apartment was crazy because it was designed for two but had three people, and we had nowhere to hang clothes, but we worked a little ever day, and I got super organized personally. 

About two seconds after I decided I was fully settled into the apartment, the President called me and informed me that I would be emergency-transferring the next morning to a different zone because someone went home early. Yay. So I was in my greeny area for about a week.

I've been in the new area for about three days. There is a U.S military base included in the area, so I'll be able to buy normally priced American stuff like peanut-butter and vanilla and speak in English a little bit. Yay. 

My new apartment is double the size of the last one with one fewer person and there is an oven, so that's super nice, but the second I stepped inside I was hit with the smell of rotting fruit. There seemed to be plastic bags of rotting fruit everywhere I looked; up in the cupboards, in the fridge, outside on the balcony thingy. So that was weird.

The apartment was just trashed in general, there was all sorts of stuff left over from dozens of companionship in the past. There is a missionary culture of just leaving all the stuff you decide you don't want for the next people. 

My new trainer Elder Benefiel has has been happily living in these conditions for the last seven weeks. He needed me. He's had five native Korean companions, so he's fluent, hopefully I'll learn fast. Right now, I'm understanding more than I thought I would be able to, unless someone is talking directly to me, then it's all out the window. I can say most things that I want to and get across most any general message, the struggle is interpreting the fast meshed together stuff. I'm loving it though. 

Spiritual stuff: 

The Spirit is not a stressful feeling.

The Spirit shows you what you need to change, but it's Satan that tell's you you need to be there immediately and are inadequate if you aren't rapidly getting to a certain point.

The Spirit works little by little. One thing at a time. He knows everything. "This is what you need to be doing differently right now" "Talk to that person" "Stop doing this little thing" 

It's never an overwhelmingly stressful feeling.

I've also come to appreciate goal setting. I've always had negative emotions associated with goal setting. Make broad goals that govern all the smaller goals. In Missionary work the weekly goals govern the daily goals. 

Goal:

Do 21 "somethings" this week

Ok, so I have to do three each day

Ok, I will do one at this exact time, one during lunch, and one when I'm at this place.

If you don't make hourly goals to govern the bigger ones it won't happen.

I feel so often like I take two steps up the mountain and slide back one. I keep reverting to old habits, but I am not discouraged because there are just enough moments where I see how far I've come. God knows my desires, I desire to progress, to fill my potential.

I love the message of the Restoration. Nothing will get me more excited than this gospel. It is woven into me, I will never stop trying to improve and figure out how to talk to people in a way that lets the spirit work on them. I want to be God's instrument. It is so, so hard. It is almost impossible, but we can do anything if we lean Christ's atonement. I'm still trying to learn how to do that. This is our purpose on Earth. Joseph Smith taught that more than any other topic, we should be studying our purpose on Earth.

Alright, go read some books

-Elder Brown

I forgot my camera again this week...why...