Who's teaching who?

Hola mamsita!!! jaja el computador es habla en ingles.... No espanol.... Espanol es muy bien! Es MUY deficil. Me maestro habla en espanol todos los clase... No bueno!!!!

Luckily my P-Day is today, friday, so we get to rest a little bit from the overload of classes during the week...Some days I have some serious troubles with the language, but then I realize what my call is to do. It's to PREDICAD SUS EVANGELIO, not to learn espanol. I will learn spanish when I've sufficiently humbled myself and worked as hard as I can.

I have increased my faith immensly while I have been here in el MTC. It's been really nice to be able to speak some of it... I can now doy mi testimonio cerca lo perfecto.... No perfecto yet... Pero yo soy muy muy cerca... I had the coolest experience! I'll write it to dad since he sends it to everyone but I wanted to share it with mi madre as well! We do 'tocars' most days, which is to knock (also to play musical instruments) and everyone was struggling the first day because we could not do it en espanol! It was muy deficil y nuestro maestro es muy rapido en espanol... So anyway, he said we'd do an example of it and bam... I got to be el companero!!!! Es muy bien. Entonces, he started doing it alone but the spirit told him that he couldn't, even as the teacher, get into the classroom. So he tried once and got shut down. Then he turned to me and said. "You need to start this with our introduction and your testimony." I started crying of fear and curled up in a ball... But then when I came out of my chomotos state, I was able to actually understand and listen to the spirit. I bore my testimonio perfectly and it was such a blessing to be able to feel that spirit as I bore it, en espanol, the third day we were doing classes.

My campanion, Elder Grajeda is great. We butt heads a lot, but it's teaching me humility and to not fight about everything, like you know I did. I've learned that if I fight, I lose the spirit. If I lose the spirit I can't speak my heart en espanol. If I can't hablo espanol, I get frustrated and down on myself.

Which brings me to Sunday. haha.... It was not a fun day. I was going to go tell my mission president I couldn't handle Spanish anymore and then either tell him to re-assign me or send me home. But the prayers of my family is really what has kept me going. Those prayers brought me comfort and directed Elder Evans (our fireside speaker) to say exactly what I needed to hear.

Love,
Elder J Henson Walker

Officially in the MTC

Hey guys.... This is Jon's older sister, Beth. I'll be updating ya'll on his happenings through these next 2 years. We got a pretty quick little email from him Saturday. He's doing great so far.... see for yourself:

It hit me yesterday muy hard that I'm going to be serving for 2 YEARS! Holy guacamole (spanish food... Not good in el MTC!) I was feeling down and not too happy with life and things like that and then it just came to me what you said about just totally losing myself in the work and forgetting about me because that's just selfish. I quickly repented through many tears of pain last noche and have never felt more rejuvenated in my life! I feel so free! I'll tell you quickly what has happened in the past 4 days... It seems like the past 4 weeks with how long it's been! jaja

Well, my companero nombre Elder Grajeda! It's Spanish, right...? He should know Spanish, si? No no! jaja we are both learning this amazing language! He has a trouble with the language, but he is going to recieve some great blessings from his hard work.

He is our leader de distrito and is doing el trabajo de fabuloso! Su es mucho mucho chiste! Yo amo su mucho....He's such a good worker and we're the same person. That's a big problem jaja we kind of get off topic A LOT and I feel espiritu leave very quickly. We talked about it last noche and have made some seriouso progress in the past few hours. We've stayed on topic and have done great! He's 20 and sure does like to talk :) 5 minute conversations turn into 30 minutes jaja but I am the same way so it's fair enough! I nick named him Elder Tortuga because he has shorter legs than me and is always behind jaja Que un HOMBRE!

I have class about... Oh let's see... 9 hours a mana? Not too bad jaja but you're right, when I'm in the right espiritu I AMO mi clase! Esta muy bueno! Mi teacher es fantastico! We just study language all 9 hours... So that is very fun but hard at many times to stay awake... I have been trying to Predicad Sus evengelio to the best of my abilities even here in the MTC and it's been great!

The language is coming... Not too easily, but I love learning and growing and that feeling when everything clicks es... perfecto. I learned mi testimonio today en mi clase.... I almost cried because de la felizidad I felt! I'm immersed in the gospel... Well the spanish gospel!

I don't get much time at all to study by myself, maybe 2 hours a day...? But I hope that it works out well that way! I feel this great spirit when I'm learning and focusing... Incredible! Dora sure has helped me with my words... I always hear the back pack song lingering as I walk through my dorm.

My zone leader's name is Elder Parker (Pahkuh because he's british) and last night I made him speak to me in an American accent... Greatest. Moment. Ever. I couldn't ask for a better district with all of us trying our best to learn. I have about 30 note cards so far of words I'm memorizing and that's just from yesterday y el dia before that... Yo amo el Evangelio Restaurado muy mucho, padre. Es un grande bedicion en mi vida.... Yo testifico un es verdad y Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador pero maximo importante, Su es nuestro hombre Celecstial. Su es usted hombre papa!

The New Guys

There are always those people that will constantly touch your life for good no matter where you are, what you're doing or what point in life you're at. They are those like my Steve's that will always be there on call. They're the guys that will be at my back for the rest of my life. Even if we're not in contact, if I call them and need something, they're there faster than anyone else would or could be.

Then we grow up and find out that there are others like that. People that before you even knew they existed, they were destined to meet you and make your life not only easier, but a whole lot more fun. They make it so that you have examples only a few years older of good righteous LDS people. They prove to you that even though you're not sure if you'll make it out alive in the next few weeks, they do all they can to direct you to the right ways. Like watching Power Rangers. Or Howls Moving Castle that NO ONE knows existed or ever owned. And in each of these movies, they find comparisons to the gospel in some way. They make it so that you are not only on the right path, but they become your guard rails as well, constantly pushing you the right way and keeping you going straight. They don't care about anything but where you're headed and how they can help.

They're the people that you've seen before, maybe even come in contact with as they work at Best Buy or helped to build Peter Pan. Maybe they were your Hyrum, and older brother not only in a show but years later in real life. Maybe they're those people that were your neighbors. Either way, they constantly increase your spiritual knowledge and power.

These are the people that are the true missionaries. They may not serve right now, but maybe they just don't realize that they're what's getting you out into the mission field. They're the push you need to get you through the hard times, the long times and the times that you just need a good anime to enjoy. They ARE serving a mission by simply serving a missionary.

Even if they're only a year older than you. It's the fact that they take time to answer a text. To make you cookies. To invite you over. To understand being late. To walk around temple square and joke with you. To have the most spiritual feelings with you when they just stand and teach. They're always there for you. They make promises that they don't just fulfill, but exceed. They're not taking places, because some can't be replaced.

They're just simply, the new guys :)

Under the Influence of Understanding

You do all you can and let the Lord to the rest. He takes over. He shows, guides and eventually helps you step where you need to. I'm 6 days from going to spend 2 years of my life serving my Savior. There is so much ice around my feet right now. It's so easy to slip. I can't afford to take my own steps and risk even a little bit of balance lost, I must MUST trust only in my Saviors way. Only be guided by HIS steps. I feel His arms around me, guiding me when I choose to let Him. This is what I've been waiting, hoping, praying, trying for my entire life. I finally figured out how. It's the hardest way but I figured out that when I'm putting my thoughts first, and perfect those, I've learned that the rest becomes so easy! When my thoughts are perfected, my actions are perfect, as perfect as it can be!
Now, this seems like SUCH an easy equation, I thought so but... It's one of the hardest to solve. Everything has to be in perfect order. It has to be absolutely perfect or else the thoughts aren't where they need to be. You can not rely on your knowledge or power. Without Christ, our power is nothing, it's simply human, simply imperfect. When we take Christ, put Him and His ways first and truly try to become perfect in our hearts, we become MORE than MAN.
We truly become MORMAN :)