Passion trumps fear

First day at the mtc.

I learned a little this weekend. I thought I would share, but in order to do it we need to take a little journey through time. So lets jump in a time machine and go! We are going back almost 2 years ago..Remember this…. Glossophobia… It was my last time to speak in church pre.mission. I got up front and completely froze.. No thoughts were in my brain, therefore no words where leaving the mouth. I ended up only speaking for maybe 2 minutes probly less and was completely embarrassed. At the time I blamed this disaster on my fear of public speaking…

My MTC district

Now lets jump ahead a couple months.. I am in the MTC  and we are having a learning activity with our whole zone. There is where one teacher teachings all of us something and then we practice it. Well this particular day we learned about how we need to teach the gospel with excitement and with passion! For the practice we all had to think of something we LOVED, our most favorite thing in the whole world then we had to talk about it with our partner. Now the point was that when we spoke about this thing we loved we automatically had more energy in our tone, in our face, we didn’t have to think about what we wanted to say or how to say it. We needed to make the gospel and teaching the gospel our passion so that we could teach it with energy and excitement.

Now lets jump ahead a year and a half. Im home. Im speaking in my home ward. See missionaries always have to speak right before they leave like a goodbye, then again when they get home, a welcoming. Well this talk was about 187.6% different from the first. At first I was nervous, but as I stood up in front of everyone and started talking every single one of my nerves vanished, the butterflies in my stomach flew away, I wasn’t thinking about how people were looking at me, or my face getting red, or even worried about what I would say. (although I was thinking about how to say certain words in English instead of Spanish), All I could feel was a love for this Gospel that I have, a love for my Older Brother and Savior, Jesus Christ, a love for Chile and the people I met there, and an excitement to share it with everyone! This time around I wasn’t hoping that the time would fast quickly, but I could have stood up there all day talking.

Just my favorite picture of all time

I had the opportunity Sunday to give a 2^nd talk at my Dads church. Which I fully embraced, Im down for any excuse to talk about Chile, my mission, and this Gospel. But on the drive home, I thought back to that terrible talk almost 2 years ago, and the change that happened to me, then I thought about Hermano Richards and his mtc lesson about passion, and then I realized. That was the change. It wasn’t necessarily that I became more comfortable talking in front of people, or that I gained confidence, although that is a part of it, but more while on the mission I truly developed not only a love, but a PASSION for the Gospel, and for the church. It really became a part of me,. I came to realize that without Christ I am nothing, that with Him I can make it through anything, that this Gospel gives us the ability to change and become more like Him and one day live with Him again, and that now in this life we need to be following His commandments and following Him, which will bring us happiness.

I never had that feeling of love for the church before, it was just always just kidna a thing I did always, and that one day at the mtc learning about sharing with passion I wasn’t sure if I would ever get there. Pretty sure that passion is my favorite souvenir that I brought home from Chile, and probly the most eternal rewarding too.

So maybe I don’t quite have a fear of public speaking….well I have a class come fall so I guess we shall see.

so im a RM and maybe weird.. deal with it.

So we all know those weirdee RMs.. actually its normal and expected yet we all still cant help but make fun of them, and for those that served missions you may have even thought Im not going to be a weirdee RM, im going to be completely normal.. I know that is what I thought then here I find myself doing things I never thought I would and being definitely a little weirdee..  so here it is the weirdieness of RMS ie ME

 

Music….. Yeah still cant really listen to music like I used to anyways, See the thing is before I was a music fanatic.. I woke up to music, got ready to music, first thing at work turned on Pandora, worked out to music, studied to music, even fell asleep to music. And it was something I actually missed a lot on my mission, some days I even longed for my itunes…. But now im here, I have itunes access right at my fingertips, any song I so desire and this is what I find myself doing… usher, skip, secondhand serenade, skip, owl city skip, kanye skip.. wait.. better yet delete!!… efy.. yeah, that’s good!

Movies. im completely out of it, currently trying to catch up on all that I have missed the last 18 months, I have quite the list. However, something about movie watching.. it is hard. And the number 1 reason why…. The suspense. It kills me man!  The first movie I watched was “Tangled” yeah starting small Disney stuff.. and even that movie got to suspenseful for me, I started freaking out not knowing what was going to happen, my heart was beating really fast, palms sweating, you know. Suspense is a feeling that you don’t have very often as a missionary especially in movies, I mean “The restoration” oh whats going to happen to jose smith?! Oh wait….. I know.  I did however get through this suspense phobia thing I got going on to have a harry potter marathon wit my sis, 4pm to 2am. HP5-8.. kicked butt!           

  Dating.. well its true, now that the RM status has been placed the setting me up with people has begun.  Pretty much everyone has me married off to someone, friends, cousins, cousins of roommates friend, random BYU shirt wearing boys on cruises u kno. But hey, better to just roll with it, so bring on the dates, but expect that I will speak of Chile throughout dinner, typical minature golf, and the awkward doorstep scene.

  Which brings me to the next… RMS always just talk about mission stories…. Uh. Of course we do! We haven’t known anything else for the past 18 months, what do you talk about.. oh wait what you have been doing for the past year and half, right, me too! But seriously, I can and will apply Chile/mission to any conversation, nothing else is even in my brain. Sorry. Oh and if not Chile applying, I will apply the gospel to any and all situations, 

Spanglish... yeah that exists. I think everything I want to say still enters my brain in Spanish and then i quickly translate it to english before letting it go. Sometimes. But i will speak Spanish to anyone that I can, not to show off (although i am cooler for knowing 2 languages. ; )bah jk) but just to praaactice! And it makes me feel at home. cuz you know Chile is kinda my home. 

Well thats all the updates for now. Although i have some quite embarrassing stories that I will share with you in the future. now dont you even worry. Mostly I miss Chile a lot and dream about going back everyday. I miss more being a missionary and thinking of others and sharing the gospel. It really was the best 18 months of my life. I dont even care if I have to be a little weird now cuz pretty sure the experience was definitely worth it.