WHAT IS JUAN RODRIGUEZ THINKING?!

Hey hey hey! This week has aged me 20 years

Ill start with the biggest news which was we had transfers last week! And because my mission president has a vendetta against me he took away my favorite person and stuck her in my favorite place. Hna barker went to simi valley, im still in SLO and im training kinda. My companion is Hermana Nielson! Shes been a missionary for a little over 6 months but has been a spanish missionary for 3 days. She opened her transfer email and got the news that she would be switching to spanish and im the one to train her. Which is slightly worse than just regular training cause at least trainees have some sort of mtc experience! But im fully confident in her capabilities and shes doing awesome! 

And God and the Gift of Tongues has pulled through for me and somehow we've stayed alive!

Anyways gotta get back to grinding spanish study but heres a spiritual thought 

One of my favorite things to teach our friends is that God has a plan for us. But just because His plan is perfect doesn't mean its easy. In order to have muscles we have to work for it. We have to add the weight and pressure. My mom often says that we get sick to appreciate when we're healthy. He never said this life would be easy. But He did say we would never be alone. I reread the talk "Opposition in All Things" from conference and it says

"Even though we usually cannot choose between these kinds of situations because they just happen, we are still free to choose how to react to them. We can do so with a positive or with a pessimistic attitude. We can seek to learn from the experience and ask for our Lord’s help and support, or we can think that we are on our own in this trial and that we must suffer it alone.

Now, there is one additional principle that is especially important. Lehi said that there “must needs be … an opposition in all things.” This means that opposites don’t exist apart from each other. They can even complement each other. We would not be able to identify joy unless we had also experienced sorrow at some point. Feeling hungry at times helps us to be especially grateful when we do have enough to eat again. We would not be able to identify truth unless we had also seen lies here and there.

Where there is sunshine, shadows must be there too. Floods can bring destruction, but they usually bring life as well. Tears of grief often turn into tears of relief and happiness. Feelings of sadness when loved ones depart are later compensated with the joy of meeting again. In periods of war and destruction, many little acts of kindness and love are also happening for those with “eyes to see, and ears to hear.”

We can rest assured that our difficulties, sorrows, afflictions, and pains do not define us; rather, it is how we go about them that will help us grow and draw closer to God. It is our attitudes and choices that define us much better than our challenges.

When in sorrow, trust that happiness is around the corner; we often just cannot see it yet. Consciously shift your focus and elevate your thoughts to the positive aspects of challenges, because they are undoubtedly always there too! Never forget to be grateful. Choose to believe. Choose to have faith in Jesus Christ. Choose to always trust God"

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