Elder Jakob Lutze: Semana 14 (Comfort is NOT Your Friend!)

Happy late Turkey Day everyone!!! I hope you all had fun spending time with friends, family, and of course eating the most amazing food! Thanksgiving here was different but still lots of fun! This week was really good! A little different, but good!

I finally was able to meet my new companion, Elder Hansen. He's pretty awesome! We get along really well, and it's been fun to become friends! I've been leading the area which has been interesting. But things are going well. At least we haven't gotten lost yet! Samaria was a bit of a shock to Elder Hansen. He didn't really like it too much at first, but I changed his mind. (Apparently it's fairly different from his other areas.) I have helped him with many things, such as realizing that the massive hills are now part of 'leg' day, any loud bang is actually just a firework, and of course, how to fist bump/say 'Hi' to everyone, and be homies with kids. Then, of course, Elder Hansen is teaching me how to be a missionary!

Thanksgiving here was fun! We got to meet our new district. Then we ate our Thanksgiving meal at McDonalds. HaHa! That was about it for our festivities. But, it was fun to just remember the good times and to celebrate it as a district family. I did get to call my family and wish them a happy Thanksgiving! I loved seeing my cousin Brian that I've helped care for the last few years.

Something pretty funny this week involved a lady named Jeissy. We were trying to have a lesson with her and kept calling her. She kept telling us she was headed back from work. Eventually, she called us back and asked, "Are you on your way yet? Stop by the chino and buy me plátanos." So, we bought her plátanos and gave them to her. Then she criticized them and didn't even offer to pay us back. We are now official grocery boys! Ha!Ha!

Saturday was a super awesome day! We had a really fun ward party. There was tons of music, dancing, games, and food. It was really cool to experience more of the Panamanian culture, especially their 'ropa típico' which was very beautiful. However, what made Saturday awesome was our baptism of Tania Dixon after the party!! It was super special! God really blessed us on Saturday. We haven't had water here for a bit, so we were worried that we wouldn't be able to fill the font. But we did it! (On a side note, bucket showers honestly aren't that bad. You just gotta work out before and then they feel nice.) Anyways back to the story. Our next hurdle was her baptismal clothes. I was sure the jumper we had wouldn't fit her. Thankfully, after some work, we found a bigger jumper that she was able to squeeze into. I'm so happy that everything worked out.

Sunday was also pretty interesting. The awesome part ~ our two confirmations. The funny and yet hard part ~ Lucia's nietos. These are some of the kids we are currently teaching and they attended church on Sunday. The moment I walked into the chapel, they went absolutely crazy! They were screaming and hugging me, literally in the middle of the Sacrament meeting. I'm pretty sure the ward hates me by now. I'm a disturber of the peace. I've realized kids are difficult! I was trying to keep them all quiet during the meeting, but it was not working. Let's just say my respect for parents and specifically women has increased dramatically. I love these kids so much and I love teaching them. They are pretty special to me!!!

My spiritual thought today is related to leading the area since Elder Hansen doesn't know Samaria or the people. I've had to do pretty much everything and it has been a little uncomfortable. However, it has pushed me to work harder and improve my Spanish skills. I was thinking about this and I realized 'Comfort is bad.' I know that probably sounds super weird, but it's true! (I'm not talking about a comfortable home.) There's two aspects to comfort I want to talk about. The first point is that if we are comfortable, then we aren't improving. We stay exactly in the same spot without going anywhere and that's not good! We should continuously strive to improve, which means being uncomfortable. The second point is that comfort breeds destruction. When we become comfortable, that allows bad things to occur in our lives. Satan is constantly trying to get us and being comfortable makes it easier. I know in my life that being comfortable brought lots of problems. When I felt I was safe and didn't need to do anything more to avoid Satan's attacks was when I should have been doing the most to prepare. Sometimes, we find ourselves comfortable in sin. Once we get comfortable in sin, then we might go a little further. And then we get comfortable in that, so we go a little further. Comfort is what brings destruction. The only thing that should truly bring us comfort is that God loves us and makes everything possible for us. But, even then, we need to continuously work to keep a good relationship with Him and constantly grow in this gospel. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be happy or content. I'm just saying that in order to feel true comfort, we need to be uncomfortable which leads to constant improvement towards our goal of becoming like Him. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we should always prepare for Satan's attacks, and we should always strive to grow.

I love you all! Thank you so much for all your support! God loves you all so much! I truly can testify that this gospel is true and that it brings greater joy and peace than any other thing in life ever could. Keep praying for my people! Have a good week everyone!

-Elder Lutze