Hi! It's hard to believe I've been here for a week! There
have been a lot of ups and downs, but overall, it's been awesome! So By the
time I went to bed on Wed. night, I had a bed...and a room...haha we moved next
door to the first room we were assigned. There are 4 girls in my room. Hna
Edwards and I are on a bunk, then 2 hnas (Moise and Ramirez) are on the other.
They've been here for 4 weeks and will leave next transfer. By the way, my
enter key doesn't work, so that's why it isnt spaced out at all. Ummm so there
were about 40 of us who arrived on Wed and they're all in my zone. Most of the
hnas in my district are from UT, or were at least on the plane from slc to lax.
Edwards met us in LAX because she's from Las Vegas. She is a fireball...oh man.
At first I was a little concerned because she has a hard time focusing, but she
is a spiritual powerhouse. She's actually a lot like Melissa! haha
So the girls in my district are Orullian, Smaellie,
Butler, Snelson, Edwards and I. The elders are Flake, Dille, Fink, Halling, and
Sawyer. Fun fact...Elder Fink played bball with the Jacobsons at SVU! And hna
Orullian sounds exactly like Rachel Nuffer...it's kinda freaky haha. So every
day, we have personal study for an hour, then breakfast, then language study,
and then the teacher comes. Hno Lopez is hilarious! He''s the one who I said is
a lot like Mark. He learned English by reading the Book of Mormon, so because
of that, he says 'therefore' all the time!! So awesome! We also have another
teacher, Hno Bodilla, who sounds exactly like Pedro from Napolean Dynamite.
It's great. The teachers teach us about grammar, or a
section in Preach my Gospel, and then we have sports and lunch. Then we come
back and learn more! So on our second night at the CCM, we taught our first investigator!!!
I was shocked when Lopez told us we would be teaching.
The first lesson was in English, but since then, we've
taught almost every night in Spanish...well, Spanglish. Our investigator is
Alejandro and he is interested in the church because his friend is Mormon and
has a great family. Alejandro is AWESOME! He speaks English pretty well, and
understands most things we say in English if we don't know how to say it in
Spanish. The first night, we taught about prayer and faith. The second night, we
taught more about faith and it went so well! On Fri night when we walked up to
him, we were super excited to see him, so we were smiling and laughing a lot.
The first thing he asked was why we were so happy. He said our smiles were 100x
bigger than they were the day before. Our Saturday night lesson didn't go as
well...we were supposed to teach about the Priesthood, but were struggling.
Then, halfway through, Edwards felt prompted to ask if he knows if God is
listening to him when he prays. So after that, it went well. Yesterday, our
district was stuck. We all take turns teaching him each night, so we have to
coordinate what we teach, since we teach different things. Then we decided to
teach almost completely by the Spirit with a vague lesson plan. In the lesson,
we bore our testimony and taught about Christ in the book of Mormon. It was
awesome! I was really nervous about the teaching part of missionary work (aka
most of it) but I love it! So fun!
So our district leader is Elder Dille...he is the youngest missionary in the
district...as in he graduated a week ago and went to the temple the morning
before he left! It's insane! But he is so awesome! He is doing a great job!
I've been struggling with patience lately. I guess when I came here that everyone
would already be mature missionaries...but that's why we're in the MTC! I just have to remind myself of that.
Oh, so one of the wheels on my suitcase broke when it was in transit from
SLC to GUA...so much for a lifetime guarantee. But I just have to kick the
wheel back in place and it's fine. The food is so good! The CCM prides itself
on having better food than Provo does...haha. Though they give us SO much food!
It's impolite to leave anything on your plate, so you have to eat it all...I
have learned to just ask for a little. It's all hispanic food, but every once
in a while, we'll get pizza or pasta...those meals are always exciting! Sunday
here was awesome!
Since the teachers don't work on Sundays, we just have
meetings and devotionals...and watch church movies. This Sun, we watched High
on a Mountain Top, Errand of Angels, and the Joseph Smith movie...in English!
The only meeting in Spanish is Sacrament meeting, which was way cool since it
was fast Sunday! The hispanos in our branch would bear testimonies in fluent
Spanish, then the nortes (north americans) would all say the same thing, since
that's all we've learned how to say. Let's see...what else...P day is tomorrow!
It was supposed to be today, but our temple time and email time conflicted, so
we email today and have pday tomorrow. We're still not sure if this is
permanent. So I will either write on Wed or Thurs next wk. The CCM is kind of
like a jail. I mean, it keeps us safe, so that's good, but we are gated in and
can't go outside without a teacher. They took away our cameras and iPods
because they could get stolen, so no pictures of the CCM! I got one with the
sign before we had to turn them in. The weather here is cool and rainy. It'll
be quite the shock when I get to Nicaragua! I've only met one sis (hna butler)
going to my mission. I have met 2 latinas from Nica though...they said it is
HOT and rainy...but the south doesn't get as much rain. The Nicaragua hermana
is sooo tiny! She looks like Angel, but even smaller! And she spoke super fast!
So hard to understand! A lot of the latinas are patient with us and speak
slower, but some don't know how. We're pretty segregated, though. We only see
them briefly in the halls, so we usually only have enough to to say Hola! One
thing I've learned...a lot of latinos are tone deaf! haha But they don't mind.
They'll still sing with as much vigor as the next person! It's awesome! I love
their sense of humor too. It's great. Well, I'm learning a lot here! I really
need to work on being guided by the Spirit! I've working on it!
I know that the Gospel gives us light! My favorite
scripture is 1 Nephi 17 13, and I actually shared it with alejandro last night.
The Lord says he will be our light in the wilderness, and I know that's true! I
love you all and can't wait to hear more from you! I have an hour to write, so
if you want to give my email out to people, that's fine! My first night here, I
got a dearelder from Sami, that was awesome! But I'd love to have some of my
friends' emails! And to just hear from people...but yeah! The church is true!
Love, Hermana MacKay
(Posted by Lisa's Mom)
