How are you these days? Is it still cold there? BTW, you never mentioned what Elder Lee's first name is. I'm just a little bit curious. I don't really know why; just wondering.
Things have been good here. A little while ago, I asked Sarah for help with dealing with my anxiety and she suggested (as did the self reliance classes) that I talk to a life coach/mentor...either that, or get some therapy. She suggested several names of people I could call. I decided to call one of them this week. The person I called's name is Alex Speiser, one of Sarah's personal friends. We called in the morning before I had to go to work. I let him know what trouble I was going through, that it doesn't happen all the time, but I kinda lose myself at the end of a work day, or if I feel overwhelmed with decisions that have to be made, or I feel like my world is colliding on me, or when I have some misunderstandings. Lots of reasons. I have anxiety that envelopes me, and I kinda am not there or I wish that I can retreat but I don't have that option (especially in the middle of work). Anyways, I am telling you all this so you can know that you are not alone. I've been dealing with this ever since the mission. Maybe even before the mission, when I left home for college. Well, he offered me a list of classes I can take that he offers. He calls them "Courses for Weeding out emotions."
Basically, in the first class, he said that we, as human beings, bottle up our emotions, and that that is not a healthy pursuit. These negative feelings get added and added upon. They become weeds in our metaphorical garden. We want to have plants that produce fruit, but we allow our gardens to become overwhelmed with weeds, and in essence, if we want to feel better, we need to weed (pull the weed out by its roots) and destroy/burn those negative emotions so they are no more. Well, the way we do this with our emotions is we write down the negative emotion, "I feel _________, because ______." And then you fill in the blank with all that comes to mind, no filters. Then you take the paper, and destroy it in the most physical manner, burn it even. I've already weeded once, and I plan to do it two more times before I take the next class. Let me tell you, after I did this, it put me in a good mood. I was walking on clouds. Hopefully, the subsequent times I do it will make me feel just as good.
I was asked on Thursday by the Bishop if I could give a talk today. Of course I didn't turn him down. That wouldn't have been as nice. Well, because he barely called me on Thursday, I had very little time to prepare. I spent most of Saturday writing this talk. And, get this, it had to be in Spanish. That's the kicker. Fortunately, I found out, I have a somewhat firm grip on writing in Spanish. I almost had no trouble writing it. I came up with the ideas the night before. I'm almost certain that there were many grammar mistakes, but that didn't discourage me. I just wrote and wrote as much as I could. The topic was Seeking the Lord. The bishop gave me the talk from the April 2015 "Seeking the Lord" by Jose A. Teixeira. I first shared an experience from my MTC experience. One that showed how I chose to seek the Lord in the midst of discouraging times with learning the Spanish language. I knew that the audience would be able to relate but with English instead of Spanish.
The funny thing was, the program said there were two testimonies, one youth speaker, and me. I had asked the bishop how long I need to take beforehand, and he said about 10-15 minutes. That was a bit scary. But then the first testimony only took like 3 minutes because it was a youth, if that. The second testimony was inspirational, and I stole some of her ideas, referring to them in my own talk. However, the youth speaker before me, even though he was there, didn't speak. I was pretty scared-how was I going to fill in 30 or so minutes. Luckily, President Martinez was there and I guess Bishop had asked him if he could say a few words after my talk, and Bishop announced it at the pulpit, which gave me some relief. After the meeting, I went up to President Martinez, and I told him "Thank you for having my back." He just smiled. I do love that man. Mom and Dad came at my invitation that I gave them yesterday. I also called Lucy and Jesus to invite them, but they already had plans.
We also went to the Howell's Homecoming today. I can't believe they already are done with their two years. Soon it is going to be you and I won't be able to believe it. We went up to say hi and share our love for them. Dad told both of them that they missed both Briana and my weddings, haha.
I taught my first piano lessons this week and it was so fun. At first I was a little apprehensive at trying something new. Hermana Guillen told me I would work from oldest to youngest. With the first child, I was kinda shooting around in the dark, but then I sorta found a method to teaching the rest of the kids. The second oldest loved guitar so I connected with him, teaching him about chordal progressions and his homework was to find songs in a certain key and report back to me about the patterns he saw. The two youngest, were both good students. And I saw them at Sycamore Hills on Friday, both of them. After I was done, I had a nice long chat Sister Guillen. Found out that she knew Briana because she worked with her before she got married at that place on Foothill.
For mutual we had a game night, video games, that is. Another funny thing, we played teams on Fifa, and we randomly picked teams, and it was me and Isaac Garcia (the worst two video game players) against the two best video game players. We were the first soccer game, so we only lost 3-0. Later, that dream team played for first place and they soundly beat the 2nd place team 6-1, haha. I didn't feel as bad.
Sarah and I watched Coco for the first time for date night, the Pixar movie. I'm pretty sure you haven't seen it yet. It was great and I got a little emotional at the end. Super good movie about our roots in our family. It had twists and turns. No wonder kids love the movie, and people relate that to family history as well. For date night, we went to a Popuseria (where they serve Popusas). It was not too bad. We noticed an Aquatic Center (en Rialto) that we decided to go to after dinner. We went to two more gyms that night to compare prices. Verdict, we can't really afford any of them. The reason we want to change gyms is because Sarah (and I) want to do some therapeutic swimming. We'll see how that turns out. Hopefully for the best.
I taught a T-K (transitional kindergarten) class this week because it was what I was chanced to get on a roving assignment. I just had to bear it with a smile and do my best not to let the kids get the better of me (since I do not do well with littler kids). The day went by alright. There was this one little kid, who's name was ironically Angel, who wasn't listening to me and who stayed in the back of the class playing with gray puddy. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? I just let him stay back there, because the other teachers told me not to set him off. In other news, I met the Lewis SDC teacher for the first time, and she was super nice and told me that if I am looking for a one-on-one job with a kid named Gordo, that perhaps next year they will have an opening. I don't know if I'll be here that long, but we shall see.
Other than that, Sarah's been sick most of the week. I've just been doing my best to love her and be there for her.
How are you doing these days? I hope you aren't sick. I love you. Drop me a line, please, haha.
Love you,
John
For mutual we had a game night, video games, that is. Another funny thing, we played teams on Fifa, and we randomly picked teams, and it was me and Isaac Garcia (the worst two video game players) against the two best video game players. We were the first soccer game, so we only lost 3-0. Later, that dream team played for first place and they soundly beat the 2nd place team 6-1, haha. I didn't feel as bad.
Sarah and I watched Coco for the first time for date night, the Pixar movie. I'm pretty sure you haven't seen it yet. It was great and I got a little emotional at the end. Super good movie about our roots in our family. It had twists and turns. No wonder kids love the movie, and people relate that to family history as well. For date night, we went to a Popuseria (where they serve Popusas). It was not too bad. We noticed an Aquatic Center (en Rialto) that we decided to go to after dinner. We went to two more gyms that night to compare prices. Verdict, we can't really afford any of them. The reason we want to change gyms is because Sarah (and I) want to do some therapeutic swimming. We'll see how that turns out. Hopefully for the best.
I taught a T-K (transitional kindergarten) class this week because it was what I was chanced to get on a roving assignment. I just had to bear it with a smile and do my best not to let the kids get the better of me (since I do not do well with littler kids). The day went by alright. There was this one little kid, who's name was ironically Angel, who wasn't listening to me and who stayed in the back of the class playing with gray puddy. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? I just let him stay back there, because the other teachers told me not to set him off. In other news, I met the Lewis SDC teacher for the first time, and she was super nice and told me that if I am looking for a one-on-one job with a kid named Gordo, that perhaps next year they will have an opening. I don't know if I'll be here that long, but we shall see.
Other than that, Sarah's been sick most of the week. I've just been doing my best to love her and be there for her.
How are you doing these days? I hope you aren't sick. I love you. Drop me a line, please, haha.
Love you,
John
