elderethantufts

[elderethantufts]

Madrid Spain Mission

[elderethantufts]

“Cardigan”

First off please email me (ethan.tufts@missionary.org). I love hearing from you and can't state how happy I would be to see an email from you! Even if it is just the super basic, "nice job" I would love that! Well week two is in the books and I am happy to report that I haven't been crushed by the steep learning of Espanol. Progress: This week we have learned a lot and I have even been saying all of my prayers in spanish (granted it is definitely not the most eloquent). We have started to dive into conjugations and I feel like I am actually learning the inner workings of the language instead of just random vocabulary. I have the missionary purpose memorized and am working on getting the first vision account memorized. Honestly when I joined the MTC I thought that I would pick up the Spanish and experience the gift of tongues; although I definitely know that God is helping me with this I am going to be completely honest with you in saying that I go to bed most nights feeling like I am never going to get the language and that whatever progress I made was minimal for this huge step. This also wraps into my testimony section nicely for this week so I will finish these feelings there. District:Wow first of all my companion is truly the biggest stud and keeps our district all together. He even made a website for our district. It is a super good looking website too! I feel like our companionship honestly is the heart of the district as we come up with ideas together and then he schedules the certain activities (such as a game night over zoom) and then I conduct the meetings and keep everything fun and spiritual. It is seriously such an awesome duo and I am glad to have him. So for the district this week we started playing a game on Zoom where we change the theme of our background pics daily to jazz it up a little for the teachers! It was a great week of ideas. I will attach some of my favorites at the bottom!   !!!Missionary shoutout time!!! Hermana Scott: This week was a very sad week for the district as one of our members, Hermana Scott, was released on Wednesday. She was such a great strength to our district and was always the first to bring a discussion from basic overview to a deep discussion about God and the gospel. SHe was always very open with how she felt and I feel like that was essential to our district as it would have taken a lot longer for all of us strangers to truly open up and be vulnerable. She was always very happy on the Zoom and shared such a powerful testimony at the end of how she knew that what she was doing was right and that she was sad to leave us but infinitely hopeful for the future. She is truly a great example to me of courage and trust in Christ's everlasting mercy for all and she will be missed. Elder Scott: The other missionary for the shout out this week actually asked to be in it and so that made my day as I know someone is at least appreciating my original idea. His name is Elder Scott and lives in Lethbridge Canada! He is such a funny member of the district and I could not imagine it without him. One day he was just fidgeting  with his rubik's cube under his desk for like 5 minutes on the zoom and no one had the guts to call him out so it was super noisey in the background and so we tease him about that a lot now. Honesty Elder Scott was probably the first to become a legend in our group as he was in canada and so we were all really interested in that the first couple of days. He is super funny about Canada and it seems like 90% of the things that he says makes me just laugh. I seriously have so many funny stories of him. He is great and REALLY lightens up the mood of the district. Testimony: Well as I talked about earlier I have really been having a hard time with learning Spanish and have been trying all I can but not finding the results that I want. So this work I have just been working on keeping to tell myself that "who the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies." (Elder Andersen) At first when I was told this I thought that it just simply meant that the Lord will in a way give me a heavenly steroid to really help me perform a certain ability at an insane level of mastery. I have however come to realize more and more that the Lord will help us when we need, but sometimes it might not be a long time for that help. That we can seem stuck sometimes and think that God is just putting us through another trial. I do this alot and just think, "oh boy another obstacle to become strong" and I just put my head down and power through it. I have been trying this mentality for the Spanish and have been very discouraged in how slow I am progressing. I forget all too often the other part of this obstacle, the finish that I can reach. Getting caught up in the difficulty of the trial I lose sight of what great reward is at the end, so it is easy for me to be discouraged and give up. I have tried to see the light at the end of the tunnel for these last couple of days and it has made it so much easier for me. So, I encourage all of you to look at the end reward of what trial you are in a little bit more. I know that as you do this you will become a lot happier and more trusting in God.I am so grateful for everyone who has prayed for me during this very difficult time and I cant express how much it helps to know that I have people behind me through this! Love, -Elder Tufts