It's been crazy how fast this week has flown by. I've been really busy, but as usual it's all kinda blurred together. I'll see what I can do to remember.
Spanish is coming along well enough, I've really been able to see the Gift of Tongues here. My strength is DEFINATELY listening. I've found that I've never really had to translate what I hear into English, I just kind of sit back and relax my focus and I can understand because I don't think in words, I think in ideas and feelings. We've been teaching a native speaker, Jorge, who is really helping our ability to understand. When I've listened to him, I've understood a lot of words and phrases I've never heard or seen. Thank heavens for the help! Speaking is awful though. >_< I speak in present tense SIEMPRE! (AGAIN!) Spanish has something like 13-14 tenses, and each of them have their own irregulars, and conjugating gives me nightmares. Nonetheless, I'm grateful of the challenge, it keeps me working. Another thing that horrifies us all are false cognates. (words that sound like an English one but mean something totally different) Dad can attest to the "Embarasado" principle. (For those who don't speak Spanish, it DOES NOT MEAN EMBARRESSED! [It means pregnant. It is a funny story from David's mission where a sister missionary thought she was saying she was embarrassed to be speaking and instead said that she was pregnant and that it was all the bishop's fault.] ) You never know when you mean to say one thing and wind up saying something totally horrific.
Speaking of which; two Elders in our district had an hilariously awful experience with the importance of proper conjugation. In a lesson with Marcos, they wanted to say: "We would like to...", but instead of "Nos gustaria..." said "Nos Gustamos". Which is NOT okay. (I'll translate this one for added inhibition: "We please each other." It's a weird way to say "We are romantically in love") Their investigator was laughing his head off for half the lesson.
On a more serious note, we've been doing a lot better teaching. I've tended to dominate lessons in the past, leaving little room for Elder Jenkins (or the spirit for that matter) to work with me. Lately, though, we've had pretty good lesson balance, and we've DEFINATELY brought the lightning of the spirit to a few lessons. Isabel is getting "baptized" this Saturday, and Jorge has a tentative date for 3 weeks from now. (Unfortunately we'll be gone) We haven't taught Marcos in AGES though, things keep coming up that are out of our control.
We watched "The Testaments" yesterday. Ugh, that movie is powerful enough at home; here I was crying my face off during the very last scene. Ay ay ay! I love it though.
Thanks a heap for the addresses; I'll use them soon.
Con amor,
Elder Clough
