Wow! I feel like I have been here for 3980 years! I'm ready to go to Mexico, AHORA! :) I'm going to be honest ... this week has been incredibly hard. My body is exhausted, my brain is FRIED, I'm thinking in Spanish and I can barely write/speak in English (that's a buena cosa, si?)
It is FREEZING here! And it has snowed I think 3 times, but not enough to stick. Snowfall is beautiful, though! On Fast Sunday (every fast sunday), we have Mission Conference and we had to gather in the cafeteria to watch it (apparently the wires in the chapel were not working-o). And I look out the window and IT IS SNOWING. Like a lot! I'm going to be honest ... I didn't pay attention to the rest of the meeting. Good thing it started to snow like 10 minutes till the meeting was done. La Iglesia todavia es verdadera!
Oh and Hma. Calderon y yo learned about Daylight Savings the hard way. Yep. Thought we woke up at 6:30am and when we really woke up at 5:30am. Oh. my. gosh. We were LIVID. We walked to our class and it was DEAD quiet outside. We thought the 2nd coming was about to happen. But then, when we walked back to the chapel, there was a small sign "Oh missionaries! Set your clocks back an hour!" THANKS. PIECE OF PAPER. ...orale (pronounced "or-ra-leh")....
As a district we watched "Characters of Christ" by David A Bednar - it was basically a spiritual slap to la cabeza. He talked about how we need to cease "turning in" to ourselves and TURN OUT like Christ would - put off the natural man!!! It was an amazing talk. I learned to stop worrying SO much about the language, I need to focus more on learning about the Gospel. I will learn to language in no time. I mean, heck, Hablo "spanglish" todas las dias!
We taught Raul and it was EXCELENTE! We got him to read El Libro De Mormon and PRAY! And our 2nd lesson, we invited him to be baptized and he said he'll think about it. That was a rough lesson, we didn't really plan together and we didn't really have time to plan. Like I said, we're both the same people so we are both pretty stubborn and have huge testimonies we want to share... pero Esta bien! So the 3rd lesson (apparently the last one, que triste!) we asked about what he thought about being baptized and he said he would pray some more... but he would most likely be baptized but he would give us the answer the next appointment. WOOOO! Until our teacher decided to throw, "Oh bytheway, that was your last lesson." BOB SAGET HERMANO HOWARD! We were SO stinking close!
Oh funny story about me screwing up the language:
I was about to teach Raul about the 1st vision and I wanted to say "Joesph Smith was 14 years old." I totally forgot the word for 14 so I said "Jose Smith tiene diez y cuatro anos." Raul looks at me like "Orale?" and says, "...catorce?" "Oh si, jaja, no se mis nombres." Here's the problem.... "nombres" means "names" ... not numbers.... the more hilarious part is ... I didn't realize what I said till dinner, like, 5 hours later. Yeah. I'm KINDA ridiculous.
So, why is our window broken? Oh. Lemme tell you. Elder Salls and Elder Johnson deemed it "inteligente" to bounce the soccer ball off the apartment walls during gym time. Well, when we went back to our room to change back into our ropas de misionarios, we both gasp as we see glass EVERYWHERE. All over the windowsill, Hma. Calderon's bed y all over the ground. We also see Elder Johnson standing outside our window. "Uhhh... lo siento hermanas! ... We'll try to get someone to clean it up. Elder Salls is hiding." All I was thinking was, HE BETTER BE! Here's the REALLY weird thing - when the ball hit our window, it broke the inside window pane solamente. The outside window pane had a soccer ball print on it. THAT'S IT. So the whole day, we were like "What are we gonna do? We're going to be up ALL night cleaning it up and freezing." Well, when we went back after class/dinner (so about 6 hours later) I go into our room and it was ALL cleaned up! Thank. GOODNESS.
On Tuesday, we went to Main Campus for the devotional con todos los misionerios and W. Craig Zwick from the Seventy spoke! I totally was prideful though, not really, "He totally spoke in my stake conference" and then like 12 other missionaries shared with me how like, Uchtdorf, Monson, Holland, Jesus came to their stake conference.... bahahaha. His wife spoke first and from her talk I am learning to
1. ENDURE
2. PREVAIL
3. TRIUMPH
A mission isn't supposed to be easy. I need to be patient with myself and with the Lord's timeline. I KNOW I can do hard things.
Remember Raul? Well, he is NOW our 2nd teacher - QUE PENA. His name is actually Hermano Porter. But everytime I look at him... his name is Raul.
We have TWO new investigadores, Merido y Carlos. PRAY for us! PLEASE.
We got a new district on Wednesday! They are so little and scared, well, not really. They're all Elders and super tall and huge. But they are SO NEW. I feel like I'm alumni ;)
We have gym time everyday except P day and Domingo. And todas las dias por tiempo de gimnasio, juego volibol! I love it! Esto es MUY divertido! I also jammed my thumb pretty bad when trying to set... but I do dive A LOT so everyone thinks I'm a big deal. not really.
Oh one day for lunch we had, I think, ciabatta bread sandwiches - and 4 other missionaries, including Hma. Calderon y yo, found mold on the bread. So Hma. Calderon y yo had cereal. THUGLYFE.
I'm learning slowly but surely that it is okay to cry because I'm overwhelmed EVERY SINGLE DAY here. Yesterday was rough - la lengua es muy dificil. We use this thing called "Speak Your Language" or SYL or (En Espanol) HSI. That's why I use Spanglish todas las dias- but it's hard when you want to speak mostly Spanish buuuuuut you don't know a lot of words and you sit in class for 9 hours a day thinking "How in the WORLD am I in an advanced Spanish class?" It's discouraging but I'm surprised with how much I'm able to understand. I can understand 85% of what people say to me AND I can officially PRAY in Spanish! I'm also able to write more in Spanish! I feel like THAT'S where the gift of tongues is kicking in. Oh and every Sunday EVERYONE in my zone has to write a talk in Spanish on a certain topic (Esta semana: Fe en Jesucristo y Su Expiacion) And the scary part is, they say who will be speaking as soon as we are done taking La Santa Cena in Sac. Meeting. Weird thing, I hope I speak este Domingo.
I got my immunization shot on Thursday and apparently they are letting you get only one Hepatitus shot... so I was fine but I needed my Typhoid shot. So we took a bus to Main Campus and I got my Typhoid shot, and about an hour and a half later I was SO sore. I could barely lift my arm!
Mom and Dad, thank you thank you thank you for your letters! They came at the right time (well, receiving letters is always wonderful) It was a really rough day on the 7th- incredibly overwhelming and I was SO frustrated with myself. I know I can do this... but being surrounded by a district who can speak Spanish SO well.... it's hard when you can barely conjugate verbs. My goals are:
-- Stop beating myself up.
-- Have patience and ENDURE.
-- Find the positive in EVERYTHING.
-- "Seek to understand before being understood." <------ :="" dad="" div="">
We are happy because it is SNOWING!
Our zone at the temple before most of them leave for the field on Monday. We're KIND OF awesome.
I found Peanut Butter Captain Crunch at the Creamry.... I didn't buy it but I was excited. Sue me. (Elder Donovan makin' an appearance.
What Hma. Calderon y yo do when we can't stand sitting down anymore.
I AM GETTING MY VISA ON THE 13TH!!!!! I am taking a train to SLC and partying up there with mi VISA. Hallelujah! El Evangelio es verdadero! No double misiones por este hermana!
Thank you for all of your prayers! It's hard out here, but I feel your prayers every single day. And I need them! Yo se que la obra misional es muy importante. Estoy agradecia por mi Padre Celestial y mi llamamiento misional a Aguascalientes! Press Forward Everyone! ENDURE! Three main elements to endure is: FAITH, PATIENCE and CONSISTENCY. Have faith that you can do ALL things! Be patient with yourself and keep trying! You will be SO blessed because of it! I love you ALL and I miss you all like crazy. Keep writing those letters and keep being awesome!
Oh by the way "Orale" has a couple different meanings... it can mean like "AWESOME! Alright! Legit!" or it can mean like ,"ohhh awkward....seriously, did that just happen?" It all depends on how you say it! :) Oh and "Que Pena" means "How embarrassing!"
Peace out!
Con amor,
Hermana Winsor
Hermanas Calderon, Winsor, Robison and Davies. (Different district, same zone)
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