FAMILY!!!!!
I made it to my very first pday can you believe it? i'm old now and new elders and sisters are now coming in! where oh where to begin. well first off they plan literrally every second of everyday here. you don't even have time to go to the bathroom! At night I have to decide between reading my book of mormon, writing in my journal, or studying preach my gospel. Ok they give us some free time but not very much. My showers are like 5 mintues because girls are always waiting. anywho to start out, thank you so much for the package!!! I loved getting my pillow and it brought a lot of comfort for the first week., the treats are amazing and i've become everyones new best friend. but then again they feed us every hour it feels like but either way i'm always hungry.
So you guys dropped me off and I had to focus on not looking back cause i'd break down. everyone was extremely friendly as I am the new person (dork dot). they take me to this room I get a huge bag of wonders with every book you could possibly imagine for spanish and gospel help. after I went to the room and being the first person picked the top bunk in the corner. I followed christine and put up tons of pictures. I put my name tag on and headed to my classroom after. Waling in with one elder, the instructor just starts rambling off in spanish.... oh boy what did I get myself into... all I can do is smile and say sei/no. after a couople of mins of confusion on my face he takes me to a computer lab where we take an evalutation about apropraite conduct in the mtc. yes folks "jog dates" are not allowed with the elders. I met my compoanion after. her namem is ister aka hermana Redford. She is 5.4, read headed, fair skinned. she is extremely friendly but didn't talk much until we got to know eachother more. she has a great sense of humor as well as keeps me in line. So far we've gotten along great, I got extremely lucky. having a cmopanion isn't nearly as bad as what I was expecting infact it's fun. a funny story about her is when I saw her name next to mine as companions I already knew who she was. on facebook I joined a page for argentina missionaries and she was listed. so pretty much I stalked my companion before we were companions. thank you facebook. you are wonderful. there are 10 people in our district. two sisters, are roomates (we thankfullly only have 4 in our room) Sister Millet (21 and teaches kindergarten) and sister gardner (19).
They are tall like me, and both have redish/brown hair. They are both athletic and the four of us have so much fun together. my comp is 20. the other 6 in our district are males. I know one of them from randomly hanging out one time. we seriously have the best district. we instantly all got along together perfectly and really laugh about everything. I also have the best zone, two girls (coordinating sisters) are like the greatest and most welcoming people in the world. This is like a giant family of love, I truly lucked out. oh and the 10, 2 are going to Colombia, 1 to Australia, and the rest my same mission... BOOYA! we had lost of orientation the first two days. and the food isn't bad but isn't amazing. about 400 arrived when I got here and even more this week. that's a lot of us newbies. my highlight the first night was a "group investigator teaching experience" 50 of us newbies gathered and taught a fake investigator. it was a huge struggle, because everyone was on different wave lengths. Lots of questions for the investigator, little spirit guidance. my favorite part was Gerog. He had lost his leg 2 years ago. we asked what is relationships with god was.. He said "I've learned over the years my leg is a gift, not for me but for others" he continued to explain how he had begun to walk and the past Saturday had hiked the 3 mile round trip to timp. as he reached the top a group of people stood around and cheered him on. He was a huge inspiration and incredible. on the way down he struggled with the incline and actually had to scoot down the entire way. but was he bitter no, he looked at his leg being a way to draw closer to God that could be done no other way. His story was incredible and powerful. oh they lie here about mornings also. before coming in you think you wake up at 6:30 right? wrong. you wake up at 5-5:30. SO EARLY!!!! man oh man it's rough, but I'm getting the hang of it and 10:30 is a wonderful time to go to bed. us girls have been working out in during our block of 30 mins a couple of times a week, we do yoga, run laps around the mtc, and play volleyball. volleyball is huge here but doesn't get my competitive side out enough... I need contact!!! oh well volleyball is still fun, we switch off from beach to court.
They are tall like me, and both have redish/brown hair. They are both athletic and the four of us have so much fun together. my comp is 20. the other 6 in our district are males. I know one of them from randomly hanging out one time. we seriously have the best district. we instantly all got along together perfectly and really laugh about everything. I also have the best zone, two girls (coordinating sisters) are like the greatest and most welcoming people in the world. This is like a giant family of love, I truly lucked out. oh and the 10, 2 are going to Colombia, 1 to Australia, and the rest my same mission... BOOYA! we had lost of orientation the first two days. and the food isn't bad but isn't amazing. about 400 arrived when I got here and even more this week. that's a lot of us newbies. my highlight the first night was a "group investigator teaching experience" 50 of us newbies gathered and taught a fake investigator. it was a huge struggle, because everyone was on different wave lengths. Lots of questions for the investigator, little spirit guidance. my favorite part was Gerog. He had lost his leg 2 years ago. we asked what is relationships with god was.. He said "I've learned over the years my leg is a gift, not for me but for others" he continued to explain how he had begun to walk and the past Saturday had hiked the 3 mile round trip to timp. as he reached the top a group of people stood around and cheered him on. He was a huge inspiration and incredible. on the way down he struggled with the incline and actually had to scoot down the entire way. but was he bitter no, he looked at his leg being a way to draw closer to God that could be done no other way. His story was incredible and powerful. oh they lie here about mornings also. before coming in you think you wake up at 6:30 right? wrong. you wake up at 5-5:30. SO EARLY!!!! man oh man it's rough, but I'm getting the hang of it and 10:30 is a wonderful time to go to bed. us girls have been working out in during our block of 30 mins a couple of times a week, we do yoga, run laps around the mtc, and play volleyball. volleyball is huge here but doesn't get my competitive side out enough... I need contact!!! oh well volleyball is still fun, we switch off from beach to court.
spanish is intimidating. it might as well be romanian. before coming in I figured you'd have clases, start with the basics. no they really don't teach you much. the method here is memorize random spanish vocab and phrases fro your investigator. it's all about the investigator. They say rely on the spirit, but never taking spanish I know nothing, english I'm great. everyone in my distric besdies one has taken years of spanish. my comp has taken 4, she is practically fluent. i'm sure she gets annoyed with me and my struggling self. spanish is intimidating and crazy so A FAVOR, EVERYONE SEND ME HOW YOU LEARNED THE BEST ON YOUR OWN. any methods will help, becuase there is so much to learn I don't know where to begin..... Everyone here says hello and smiles, it's wonderful to be around people who are righteous and you can be nerdy with:) no one is incharge of us, we are the source of our own succes. this place reminds me of a giant efy on steriods. but no COWS (crust of the week). and when we make the walk to the marriot center, it's like a freedom trek. on friday we taught our first investigator Gregorior. It is terrifying but i'm getting better. pretty much my comp does all the talking I throw in a few words smile and nod my head. they are 30 minutes lessons and we teach him everyday. I will admit my first tears were with him, I just want to be able to share how I feel with him about everything but can't. It's soooo frustrating. sunday: so there are 173 new mission presidents plus there wifes, but you proaly know that if you watched the broadcast. DID YOU SEE ME? I was that tiny spec in the sea of missionaries. was that not the coolest thing ever, we fill up half the stadium. because we had important people staying here with us in the mtc we had to eat in the gym. which would have been ok for 4 days if they hadn't run out of food practially every time. one morning I had cholocate milk with my lucky charms... yum. so much for running out of regular milk!! um hello costco?! the night devotional because my companion and I our righteous we sat near the front,,,, bad idea they call on you to pray. I freaked out until I realized it was in english:) the talk was good it was about how we didn't come here to stay the same we came here so the Lord could change us. and just like God called Jospeh smith by name, he will called my name as a missionary. the world wide broadcast was so cool, and i'm very grateful to have expereinced it here while in the mtc. 12 of the 13 apostoes were on our campus at one point and the 1st presidecny. about 4,000 missionaries are here on the main campus alone. although we sat in the marriot center for 5 hours straight it was well worth it. I hope you guys watched:) after we headed back they brought in byu creamery icecream:) oh baby it was delicious, and I found out that it's twice a week. Whaaaa, best night snack ever!!! my favorite time of everyweek is personal study itime (I love preach my gospel... reading it is the best! seriously I love it.) and trainging resource. this is where the teacher teaches you (in english) about basic stuff you proably should know but most of the time you get jumbled in your head and end up forgetting,. we only get a teacher about 2 1/2 hours a day, if that. and the spanish portion of that is even less. I was not expecting the method of learning language here.... Tuesday night (last night) we had a devotional (marriot center every tuesday and sunday) with Janice kapp perry. she wrote half the primary songs (I love to see the temple, childs prayer, look 'em up. she also wrote the efy medley) she had the perfect mixture of humor and spirte in her talk. at the end all the missionaries sang a rendintion of the "efy medley" but with the words switch to missionaries terms. Yup I am pretty sure there wasn't a dry eye in the bunch. it was incredible and sooooooooo powerful. I came out of that meeting on a spiritual high. a funny story during it was she told us what her husbands first lines were in highschool. so he has a music class with her, walks up to here randomly and says "you know your lips look like they could do a lot better with something besides a clarinet." then during the devotional her 70something year old husband jumps up runs over to her and smacks her right on the lips. yup he kissed her, and the crowd went wild! we all jumped up in excitedment. it was the funnniest thing ever and you can tell all us missionaries love the action. and what was her response "I know that man like a book, but tonight I don't know what page he's on. maybe I shouldn't tell that story again in public... or maybe I should;)"
anyways This is about the highlights of my first week. I'm writing super fast so sorry if it sounds like random thoughts coming out my head... that is pretty much what it is. Don't judge me for spelling or grammer, there is no time for that here. well I miss you all like crazy, and last night we shared pictures of eachothers family and I cried "happy tears" while I talked about every single one of you. I love you so very much and thanks for the wonderful support. I love all of the letters and feel extremely loved everynight when my zone leader hands them out... If the church weren't true there is no way I could leave you for so long. I LOVE YOU!!!!!! more to come next week, i'll try to send pictures. ahhh runningout of time! love yoU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! forward this letter to whoever wants it or put in on my blog after you fix it up and take out parts.
NOTE: if you are going to send me packages with food that could go bad easily let me know a head of time. sometimes I don't get them for a day. but like cookies, they're fine the second or third day:) thanks Rachel for the HANDS!!!!!! delicious and a little piece of home to brighten my day.
My first prayer:
quierido padre celestial. Estoy agradecida por mi familia. y porcompanero, agradecida por mi llamameanto misional. por favor me con el don de lenguas :), por favor me bendice me con salud y caridad. te pedimos que bendiagsal profeta Thomas S. monson y nestras familias. en el nombre de jesuscristo amen.
my first testimony:
yo se que la iglisia es verdadero. y que el libro de mormon es un verdadero. yo se que dios es amoroso padrew celestial. este testimonio me ayuda a ser una buena persona en el nombre de jesuscristo, amen.
ok so I cheated on a few words but dno't judge i'm getting better.
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