Hola from Mexico!!
Familia: I sent you a letter but I forgot to
date it so whenever you receive it just know I sent it on the 19th of
August! Also you should tell Connor and Kenna that Parker from Chick fil
A was down here so I got to see him before he left for the mission
field!
This has been a bit of a hard week I´m not going to lie, we had an
elder from our district decide to go home early and it kind of caught us
all of guard. We knew something was going on because he kept having
meetings with Presidente Pratt but I just remember Thurs. night he was
talking, laughing, studying really hard with us and even helped set some
goals for our district, then Fri. morning he went to Pres. Pratt and
was gone by noon. That was hard for me, feeling like, from what I could
see, that everything was going ok but then having him leave so suddenly.
My companion and I found a quiet place to pray for him after we found
out but it took accepting the fact that we don´t know all of his reasons
and we don´t know what he´s going through for us to kind of pick up and
get back to work which we did almost right away. Things like that
happen but the work still goes on and we are a big part of that work.
With that thought in mind I found a good way to describe the CCM, there
are a lot of similarities to Boot camp. You have a rigorous and very
precise schedule that includes being up and ready before the sun is, you
have a specific purpose in mind and are pushed always to be better
become better and improve, and if you don´t they make you run. We have
class right after gym time and if we´re tired from said gym time and are
not repeating the spanish lesson back loud enough or quick enough both
of our teachers will make us run around the building. Hermano Lara will
make you run around again if you aren´t running fast enough so if you
run fast you usually only have to run one lap. Hermano Martinez will
have us run two laps always but at least he runs with us. Keep in mind
mi compañera and I are in skirts for this. It sounds mean but honestly
our teachers are two of the sweetest, most caring teachers in this whole
place and they just really want to motivate us to pay attention and
learn. We realized just how lucky we are to have our teachers this week
on another hard day: yesterday we were practicing teaching another
district and told to pretend it was the first visit, teach along the
lines of the first discussion, and keep things very basic. Unbeknownst
to us the teacher of the other district decided to give his missionaries
a problem for us to have to find out and deal with. They were supposed
to be investigators who were living with a girlfriend who had just had
an abortion. Not that I´m saying that isn´t a topic that needs to be
taught and we definitely need to learn how to teach it but it was hard
because my companion and I didn´t even know the words for Law of
Chastity and we had just barely been counseled in Relief Society not to
use our own words for issues like same-sex marriage and abortion but use
the official stance of the church which we didn´t have and wouldn´t
even know how to talk about. So my companion and I were feeling a little
bit cornered, frustrated, and stressed out and the other teacher (who
has a more "abrupt" teaching style) was just standing there asking why
we didn´t know this and why we weren´t doing our job and teaching
according to the investigators needs. Thankfully our teacher came and
took over, pacified us a little bit, and then sat down and showed us how
to do it, all the while encouraging and supporting us. It was
definitely a learning experience and I gained back a bit of my
confidence and was just testing it out for myself when the other teacher
said I had missed my chance and I would have to try harder next time,
(I´m not his biggest fan) but I feel better now having been shown by my
teacher how to address something even if you feel like you don´t know it
all the way yet. On to more positive things we had another torrential
rainstorm and we ran back to our casa to get our rain jackets before
realizing we didn´t have our keys and having to run all the way back to
class and back in rain that is coming down so hard the street is one big
puddle that came up to my ankles it was great! One of our elders was
really great and ran through the rain to get our umbrellas for us so we
could go get our jackets. I had a really cool testimony builder, my back
has kind of been hurting for a couple weeks and it was more annoying
than anything but one night during personal prayer I asked for the pain
to go away and before I even finished the thought it did! And it hasn´t
bothered me since. We got to have waffle fries at dinner the other
night!!! They were so delicious I thought I might die. They tasted even
better than I remember them. So we became good friends with some Latinas
this week and have been sitting next to them during meals so we´ve been
practicing a lot of Spanish and it´s a bit stressful because there´s an
Hermana from Chile and we can´t understand what she´s saying most of
the time!! It stresses me out but Brad (Elder Heywood) has been emailing
me saying he´s getting it so if he can get it I can right? The Latinas
are so great and sweet, they´ll give you a hug and a kiss on the cheek
goodbye right after they meet you and are so excited to see us everyday.
One Latina started trying to tell us that it´s really cold down in
Chile but then we said we were from Utah and she said Oh no mucho calor!
Meaning that it´s very hot down in Chile compared to Utah, we thought
that was funny. Oh and apparently by now we are only supposed to be
speaking spanish because teachers and workers will get after us if we
don´t try to say something in Spanish first. We had to go tell Recepción
about our shower (it wasn´t draining) and they wouldn´t hear us out
unless we spoke spanish once they realized how long we´ve been here.
It´s hard but at least it helps us learn. So I thought moths were bad in
Utah but down here they hang out everywhere and are bigger than my hand
it´s kind of freaky, we also found our first cockroach but luckily it
was during our service project in the auditorium not in our casa.
During a devotional David A. Bednar had a challenge that I wish I
had enough time to do! He said to acquire a cheap blue covered Book of
Mormon and read it cover to cover with just one specific question in
mind, and highlight every part that answers that question and do this
every time you have a question about the church, he said if you did that
by the time you´re his age you should have a whole shelf of B.O.M.´s.
Also something that I find really cool is the fact that within the four
days that we went running for gym this week I ran 12 miles! Three miles
every day! Especially since my companion said the elevation here is
something like 7,000 ft. and Utah is like 4,000!! I am not a runner,
never really have been yet somehow I´ve been running three miles every
day? What is that? My companion said something that is very true, there
are so many gospel principles, doctrines, and ideas that can be applied
to running! Perservering to the end, never giving up, pushing yourself
to be better, and surprising yourself with how much you are able to do.
I´ve been thinking about running a lot concerning my mission, it´s
really hard, it seems like the beginning is harder because your body is
still getting used to it, the middle is hard because you have to focus
on putting one foot in front of the other and not getting off track
because then it´s even harder, and the end is hard because you want to
continue running as hard as you have been but you know you´re almost
done so it´s easy to lose your momentum. It´s really hard sometimes and
then other times, just when you want to quit or give up, a breeze blows
behind you, or you realize you can actually go a little farther. It´s a
track that we´ve been running around and I think a big part of why I can
run twelve laps without stopping is because I keep telling myself: you
can do one more after this. After this lap, you can do one more. And I
do. I know that if I keep picking myself up and saying One more, give me
one more trial I can take it, I can do it I will be able to. The
gospel´s true, the book is blue and moroni´s always on the ball. I know
what I´m doing and what I will be teaching is true and I love you all so
much!!
Hermana (Mandy) Boully
Sister N,
Hola!!
Its been a good and kinda crazy week. We got to go to the
temple on Friday which was soo amazing one because its the temple but
also it was cool beacuse i was just there at the ccm I cant believe two
months have gone by since then. The whole weeek we were all looking
forward to the temple thursday night we hardly slept because we where
excited and we also had to get up super early to get there in time makes
me very grateful for having temples at home where they are so close and
we can go so often. The season was so cool it was my first time hearing
it in spanish and I actually understood most of it which was soo cool
it felt like the first time being so new and interesting because it was
in spanish and i had to pay close attenion.
Then we got to go to the mall and bowling. It was kinda weird going
becuase it felt like home and its so different from my area but it was
so much fun.
This next week we get to have a conference by Elder Duncan which will be really cool!
Im learning how frustrating agency is sometimes. We have placed a
couple of fechas for baptism but we are having a hard time holding on to
them by getting people to go to church and trying to visit them during
the week. This week we had three people who promised to come to church
and we even looked for them sunday morning before church but they all
had excuses its hard but we just got to work harder and be patient even
though its hard to have patients. The cool part is that even thourgh we
didnt have our fechas at church we still had a new family at church that
a member had brought so we have new investidors which was our miracle
for that day!
The members here are so amazing there are couple of return
missionaries and missionaries that are preparing to go that are sooo
amazing they are always willing to help like helping us pick up members
or going up to our investigators in church and getting to know them.
There is a member he is getting ready for a mission but he is already a
missionary he is such a good teacher he has showed ways to teach simple
so others understand and somtimes people need others from there cournty
to understand what we are trying to say.
Make sure to help the missionaries out in our ward offer to go out teaching or let them teach in our house it helps a ton!
It
really cool meeting new people and seeing how much they care for the
gospel for other people it makes me wanna be better. Seeing their faith
and how strong they are its amazing! There is times when I miss my
friends and family but im soo happy to be here and i get excited when i
have everything down when ill be a better missionary so that I can be a
better tool for our healvenly father but it takes a step at a time!
I love you so much and I hope your all have a good day!
Love,
Hna Nicia Boully!
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