December 5, 2013
Hola!
Two more weeks until I´m in Paraguay!! I´m so excited,
except extremely nervous. My Spanish is far from ready, but I know the
Lord will help me and I know I will be able to learn it. Since I only get
an hour to write, I just write to you guys and then print off the e-mails and
read them later, so I´ll answer some of your questions from last week.
I´m am feeling one hundred percent better. It took awhile my nose to stop
running, but I feel good and healthy and all is well! (That´s for you mom :))
Anyways, right now there is about 36 North Americans in the CCM and we
are receiving a group of about 51 Latinos today, I´m not sure how
many hermanas and how many elders. So ya, it´s a pretty small
CCM. The last group of North American Hermanas were all going to the
Paraguay Asuncion North mission and there was about 6 of them. My mission
is about a third of the size as theirs so that would be why I haven´t seen a ton
of hermanas going there, but there should be some Latinas in this group heading
to my mission, so hopefully I won´t be alone when we leave.
We do have a modern laundry. Each companionship gets assigned
a day and a time, and that´s basically how that works. The bathrooms
are really nice. Actually Hermana Louder and I have the biggest bathroom
because there are eight beds in our room. So we have two of
everything and it is not as squishy as some of the other ones. It´s
actually funny that you asked about my blow dryer and straightener, because I
hadn’t used either of them until this week. My hair has just been really
curly since I´ve gotten here so most days I don´t even touch it. I
straightened my hair this week, but the humidity makes it go kind of wavy
throughout the day. ´The plugs here are different in Argentina, but they
have like a strip with all the different plugs on it. My blow dryer
however doesn´t fit. The prongs are too big, so I’m hoping it´s going to
work for me in Paraguay, so far I haven´t really needed to use it. We get
an hour of activity time each day. Usually Hermana Louder and I try to
play with the Elders, they are nice, they always want us to play like
volleyball or handball even though we aren´t very good. Hermana is a runner and
well, I´m just me :)
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We didn´t really do
much, it was just a normal day. The Elders had a turkey bowl though,
so I guess maybe that´s something. The weather has been heating up
and so it doesn´t really feel like Christmas here. I love it though, and
I actually have kind of a tan line from my watch! Crazy right. Speaking
of my watch, (Sorry I feel like I´m all over the place), I´ll probably have to
end up buying a new one at some point. The strap is kind of small
and it´s already pretty worn from taking it on and off every day. Está
bien!
This last Saturday we were in the same area for
proslyeting. We saw a lot more people, but we didn´t have much
success, although we did talk to some really nice people and that made it all
worth it. Many of them have had the missionaries come around before (I´m
sure they reuse the areas a lot) but they were so nice. And we were
able to share our testimonies about the Book of Mormon with several
people. If anything, they are starting to see that it´s important if so
many different young people who can´t even speak Spanish very well are coming
around so often. One lady was so nice and gave us water, it was so
hot! I hope we were able to make a difference. I love going
proslyting! It´s sad that I´m never going to know what happens to the people I
talk with, that´s why I´m really excited to get to my mission. I don´t
want to just go to one area and never go back again.
One thing that stuck out to me in my classes this week was
about making goals. I´ve always had a hard time with making goals.
I would have good intentions, and I would even write them down, but other than
that, nothing really happened. So in class one of my teachers said.
"A goal is just a wish until you have a plan" I love
that! And that works for anything. I´m starting to see the
importance of goal keeping more and more. And I hope I can make a
good habit of it.
I´m so happy to be here, and doing the Lord´s work.
Maybe my Spanish isn´t quite ready to teach people, but my spirit is! I
love this Gospel and I love the Savior for all that he has done for me.
If you build up one person´s sins and sorrows over one life time, that pain
alone would be unbearable and it would probably kill the normal person.
Now just imagine a world full of people now and since the world
began! I can´t even imagine that love! One of the things Elder Holland said,
and don´t quote me because this isn´t exact but, "The road to salvation is
not a cheap of experience. It has to be hard, because it was hard for Him.
Every road must go through Gethsemane. Wherever we go He goes, and the
tears we shed are some of the same tears he shed" I love that.
It not only makes it feel like my Savior is closer to me, but that I am closer
to my Savior. My pain will never be as great or severe as what He went
through, but throughout my hard times, I can feel some of the same things that
He felt. The atonement is real! And that´s the message I´m excited to get
out and share.
I love you all so much!
Until next week,
Hermana Lindsay
No comments:
Post a Comment