La vida Boring (October 19, 2020)

 Well hey hey hey it's that time of the week again, thought I should update you all on the couple of things that have happened in the past seven days. 

Transfers were last Monday, so I am training now, a new Elder Jones from Texas, which with the arrival of a new Missionary means that we are once again in strict quarantine for the next week. Unfortunately we are not even in the apartment on Staten Island that will be ours, but instead we are in an apartment in Brooklyn to wait our 14 days before hopefully moving into the new one. However, we have been told that we have the best view in the mission, and I have to agree. I'll put a photo down below. 

Being a trainer for the past week has definitely shed light on my preparedness for the rest of my mission. Unlike before, with my other two companions, there is no crutch to lean on when I may not know a word or way to say something. There is not another person to look at when things don't happen the way they should. In fact, I have become the crutch. 

The cool thing is that, in my opinion, the situation that I am now in is probably the best possible one to be in for the growth that I know is necessary to become the missionary that I have always aspired to be. No more background scenes, but now, front and center stage. A place that I've often found myself in, and because of that, I am so very excited for the next two transfers. I've never been too comfortable in such situations, but some of my best moments have happened within them. 

For example, our very very first lesson this transfer was with Jose. We were teaching the importance of church attendance. I do pretty much 100% of the talking at the moment because Elder Jones is still beginning the language, and so I was pretty much the only person speaking Spanish for a solid 20 minutes. Once we had finished the lesson, or maybe during, something clicked. I didn't realize it, though, until I once again went to read the scriptures in Spanish afterwards, as I had a million times before, but this time something was different. Wait, that made sense. Next verse, same thing. I ended up reading 3 or 4 chapters at a decent speed and understanding pretty much every... Single... Word. 

Now yes, I know that may not be too exciting for most people, whoo hoo you can finally understand the language you were assigned to learn almost a year ago. I get it. But, in Perú I had been on track to be as fluent as I could get at this point in time. I had always wanted to learn this language, and when I was called to Perú, my dream was being fulfilled.  With the unexpected reassignment, I had thought for a long time that I would actually never learn Spanish which kind of crushed me to be honest. Because of that, I am very grateful for the opportunity that I still have to learn Spanish and for the gift of tounges that I have received to better understand it. 

In other news, I turn 20 on Friday. What a way to celebrate a birthday eh? Quarantined in Brooklyn, eating rice. But getting out of the pity party, I am also very excited to have the opportunity to start my 20s serving the Lord, and there really is nothing better that I could be doing for my birthday than teaching others about our Savior Jesus Christ. 

Cool thing about quarantine, you learn a whole lot about where you live. There's a pizza slicer in one of our drawers that if you turn it 90 degrees, at the right speed, it rings like a bell. I think thats pretty cool right? 

Wish you all the best for this next amazing week. 

El Nuevo Misionero, 

Elder Baird