week 17

First off, I loved reading your letter.  Its so cool to hear about visiting teaching and also about the family and about my grandparents.  And it made me laugh that you made sure to reassure that I shouldn't worry about the car.

With Kevin, I'm a little frustrated, just because I know that the teaching process is probably going to take some time with him.  We had a really good lesson with him this week were both Hna Leiva and I both felt the spirit directing the lesson.  And he was able to openly express his feelings and we were able to testify that it is only through following the commandments of God that we are able to feel peace and happiness.  But there is part of him that doesn't want to give up the world in order to follow God.  Which obviously we all have those things that are hard for us to give up, but anyway thats that.  

This Saturday was pretty interesting.  The morning was awful, but the evening was awesome.  In the morning had a lesson with Estela Mari, and the Spirit was completely absent.  We started the lesson singing "Love at home" (classic right) , and the son was not showing love for his mom, and nobody was paying attention to the message.  Then right afterward we went to follow up with someone that we only had one lesson with, and he returned the Book of Mormon that we gave him.  But in the evening we were able to go to a baptizm, and Kevin came as well.  And Kevin liked the baptismal talks.  And I was so happy to be at that baptism and feel the Spirit.  Also something that was really good about this week was that Hna Leiva and I were able to have an impromptu companionship inventory, where we were both able to express what we were feeling.  We've been having different opinions about almost everything and its caused some tension, especially because I kept bottling up my feelings.  So it helped a ton when we both expressed our feelings and I was able to vent some of my frustration, and Hna Leiva was so calm about it. 

After that night we've had a lot more unity in our teaching and that's been a huge relief.  One of my goals for the mission, is to learn how to communicate better, because my natural tendency to to pretend that everything is alright, and I really think that that night helped me in my goal of learning to communicate better.  A example of that is when after the lesson with Estela Mari, Hna Leiva was unusually quiet, and I was thinking, "she's probably mad at me for teaching poorly", and then I realized that I didn't know that for sure and that I needed to ask her.  So I asked her straightforward, "are you mad at me" and I learned that no she wasn't mad, she was unusually quiet because the lack of the spirit in the lesson really afected her.  Anyway, thats my thoughts from this week.  Another side note, I now understand why everyone always thought it was so awesome that as youth we went to seminary, because I now feel the same pride for all the young singles in our branch.  Everytime I see them I keep thinking about how awesome they all are for putting God first in their lives.  Anyway I love you lots.

-Alyssa