So I'm staying in my same area in the Los Altos zone with Elder Larsen for another transfer which is exciting. I like this area a lot and the ward has been fun to serve in. On Saturday we did some service for one of our members and brought the Woodland Park Elders along with us and we did a bunch of yard work and then he did some Mexican Barbecue for us for lunch and it was amazing. We also each ate a grilled habanero and the English Elders basically died. It was still super hot and painful but I've started to build up somewhat of a tolerance for spicy things thus far.
We also have temporarily moved in with the other Elders for about a week because we discovered bed bugs in the members house that we are staying with which is no bueno. President gave us permission to stay somewhere else until it gets taken care of because nobody wants to stay somewhere with those. But hopefully it all gets resolved by the end of this week so we can go back over there.
My companion and I gave 3 blessings this week which was random but also really awesome. All were in Spanish and it was a good opportunity to practice the language. It was a good confidence booster to see that they were each able to feel the spirit and hear the things that they needed to although I am not the perfect Spanish speaker. It was a really great experience to witness the gift of tongues in action. When Elder Bednar came and spoke to us, one of the first things that he talked about were spiritual gifts. He said that if you want to have a certain spiritual gift, you will never get it out of your own personal desire. Spiritual gifts are always used to bless others, and the Lord will help you develop that gift as you go and use it to serve. I've found that is definitely true, and improvement on my language study has always been more successful when I find that I am studying for somebody else instead of myself. For example, studying how to teach an investigator about The Plan of Salvation in Spanish has helped me remember vocabulary and phrases a lot better because I need to learn it in order to help whoever I'm teaching come closer to Christ. And the Lord will bless you in those moments and have the spirit bring those things to your remembrance (as He promises in D+C 100:5-6) because in that moment of teaching them or giving a blessing it's not your message to them, it's His. And it's been a really cool experience to witness that.
Other than that, not a whole lot happened this week. We had a handful of lessons and are chugging along in the work. We have a fresh transfer in front of us and have a lot of goals of things to accomplish by the end of it. The end of next transfer will be my 6 month mark of being in the field which is crazy to think for me because it's been going by pretty fast. I've had a lot of good experiences and I'm sure that there's a lot more in store. I've also learned pretty quickly that you never get the time back and that you have to remember to make the most of it. But I miss and hope to hear from you all. I'm doing pretty good out here and hope that everything is going well from everyone else too. Love you guys!
-Elder Godwin
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