Tuesday, August 5, 2014

8/5/14

From Sister Nicia

HOLA
My first change is over! Oh my goodness its gone by fast but yet not and i still have so much to learn and I only have one more change in my training then I gotta train! I was so scared that my companion would go to another area and I would get a new companion it was nerve racking waiting if we would get a call and of course they call at 11 or so late at night but we arent changing but we are geting another companion so we are going to be a three some! My companion isnt to happy cuz she had change with a three some that wasnt so good but Im excited because I dont know what to expect but I hope who every she is I can learn from her and we can all work together well!
Last tuesday me and my district gave service has translators. There was a Organication of dentist that came from the US to give there time and money help the people here in guatemala there were from all over mostly canada and the east coast it was really cool to help and be part of but it was also kinda hard. They set up all there stuff and tools in this big gym and people would line up outside waiting for hours in the hot sun to be seen. It was hard to see there were kids getting 5 teeth pulled me and my companion worked with this one kid for about 20 min trying to get him to close his eyes so that the doctors could give him a shoot to numb his mouth. everytime he saw the needle he would cry and i dont blame him. Makes me soo thankful for the dental care I had and for parents that made me brush my teeth and I remind everyone brush your teeth!!!!!! Goodness while we where there they had two guys that went through hard surgeries two people fainted Im again so grateful for all that we have back at home.These doctors where amazing and it was cool to see and talk to these doctors and to talk about the church some had some crazy stories about the church and the people of course not all were true. It was cool to help even though i couldnt speak very well i was still able to help. It was cool to see everyone helping and giving service. I guess the LDS Hospital in salt lake provided the Xrays for the organisation just really cool!
I feel like life we are learning how to be better specially on my mission my dad gave me a quote "when you choose the lord you choose to be challenged" when i first read it I thought it said changed instead of challenged but i feel like they go together we are changed has we are challenged to be able to make thourgh our challenges. 
Im tring to learn how to fully rely on the spirt to know what to say and how to say it cuz thats my best friend to help me master this langauge! 
This last week we found two new families that we are working with we are hoping they all have fechas! Me and my companion have a few members that always go out with us yesterday we went out with this return missionary and he taught us so much and kinda reminded me of some things i was taught in the ccm but he showed me how they work. So back to the beginging we found this lady when we where contacting we taught her once after but just her. Sunday night we came to teach her and found her and her family so we got to teach the whole family and found out that the Husband was a member that he had been baptised by missionaries 20 years ago. We were able to remind him of why he joined and how it would strenghten his family for them all to join it was a really cool lesson. The Return missionary showed me about not being scared to invite everyone even if they are busy with other things like movies or games I know its ya duh everyone knows that but sometimes its hard when you dont want to interupt but the message we have is so important and if we would of not invited everyone we may have not found out about the husband or had a great lesson with all their family! I hope everything goes well but Im learning how i can chang to be better and face the challengeges i have been given so that I can be a better tool for the lord!! I love you all!
Hermana Boully



From Sister Mandy

Hola mi familia! This first week at the CCM has already been crazy! First let me say Mexico city is crazy, noisy but absolutely beautiful! There are palm trees everywhere and mountains all around us that are jam packed with houses that are all painted really bright colors!
My first compañera´s name is Hermana Vorwaller and she is amazing!! She´s one of the hermanas that flew out of SLC with me and we are already great friends! Partially because we immediately had a bonding moment when a bright sunny day turned into a torrential downpour of rain and we ended up taking off our shoes and running through the river that was our street to our Casa. The only bad thing is that she really likes to run and I forgot my gym shoes and can´t buy more til today at the Tienda (store). So we play soccer instead!! So the food here has two unique characteristics- nothing tastes like what it looks like, but everything tastes better than it looks. You´ll think something is spicy but it will be sweet and you wouldn´t believe it but Pineapple beef tacos are actually muy delicioso! Plus I didn´t think it was possible but they have Nutella down here!! The food is actually pretty familiar but you can tell you´re in Mexico because they serve rice and beans with every single meal. Also my new favorite flavor of yogurt is Guava. 
So I can see why people say you learn Español quicker down here because nobody speaks very much English!! On our first day we were trying to be good missionaries so we showed up to class fifteen minutes early and our teacher said something about it but it was in Español so we only half understood him so we sat down and realized that class started at 930 but we had showed up at 845 thinking it started at 9. We had to look up how to say early and tell our teacher and he was like Su hermanas es como se dice on the ball? and made the saluting sign. We have a new motto now- five minutes early is forty minutes late. We also have a motto that says the MTC is the place to make mistakes because on our second day we made a huge blunder. They don´t waste any time giving us practice and we were supposed to teach our first investigator named Carlos on the Second floor of the Thomas S. Monson building, so we went up one flight of stairs, found only one guy, he said his name was Carlos so we taught him our lesson. It went great! I understood pretty much everything he said and was actually able to converse in Español with him but then we went outside and it wasn´t our district waiting for us. Come to realize we had taught the wrong Carlos and our Carlos was another floor up and had waited for us for 25 minutes before the next elders got there to teach him. We couldn´t take up someone else´s time slot so we told the elders to apologize and went outside and lamented our mistake. It was cool because we were really down when all of a sudden this random quote fell out of my scriptures that said something to the affect of Do whatever you can and it will be enough even if you stumble etc. etc. We were just starting to feel better when our teacher came and got us and said we still needed to teach the other Carlos. So we had not prepared a lesson and were completely thrown but it still went really well! The next day we taught him again and taught him how to feel the spirit and about the Book of Mormon and it went so well and the spirit was SSOO strong I couldn´t think of anything else other than This is what I get to do for the next year and a half!! 
I´m surprised at how much Spanish I understand and how quickly it is coming! We are constantly studying, even at night when I try to go to sleep my head is so full of Spanish phrases and words it takes a little bit for it to power down and go to sleep. Sacrament meeting is entirely in Spanish and mi compañera and I were so proud of ourselves, we were able to bear our testimonios completely in Español without any cheat sheets! What they say is true! Sunday is like a spiritual boost plus we got to watch the Testaments, a movie that normally makes me cry but this time, something about being in a room full of misionarios made me bawl like a baby the whole way through. Oh and starting on the second day we are only allowed to pray in Español and our teacher made some rules and there are only a few times a day when we´re allowed to speak English otherwise we have to buy chokis (cookies) for our district. I was worried about some of the little things I forgot but the Tienda is amazing and has a lot of stuff you can buy, not that I forgot much. Our district is awesome by the way we are the only hermanas but all of the elders are so funny and nice. We were studying one time and the Mission Pres. walked in without any of us realizing it and he walked up to one of the elders and picked up a picture of his girlfriend he keeps in his journal and asked if it was his sister the elder was like uhhhh and the Pres. said I didn´t think so.
This may sound surprising but I actually really love the schedule down here! I´m still not used to waking up early but I like being up and about and doing something meaningful early every day. P Days are great so far, I have never been so excited to do laundry. It´s great because my compañera es very good at congugating verbs and I´m good at remembering them so we work really well together and pretty much all the time we just communicate in broken Spanish and are able to understand each other. Everyone down here is so nice and friendly and helpful I really do love it and it is overwhelming at first but it´s not as hard as I thought it would be, especially since I´m getting used to how things work down here. 
Give Dawson a big squeeze for me and tell him he´ll be a great missionary and that I love him! I love you guys so much and I miss you but I´m trying to stay busy so I don´t think about it too much! Dad you have taught me so much throughout my life which is coming in handy down here and I really do know that this church is true, that I´m in the right place doing the right thing and don´t worry because these next months will go by faster than you think! Now for practice- my testimony en Español.
Yo se que Jesucristo es mi Salvador, y mi Redentor. Yo se Dios es amoroso, y mi Padre Celestial. Yo se que La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los santos de los ultimos dias es verdadero, y es de iglesia de Padre Celestial. Yo se que Jose Smith es un profeta, y Thomas S. Monson es un profeta a hora. Yo se que Padre Celestial bedice mi familia, y esta familia es para siempre. En el nombre de Jesucristo. Amen.
I love you soo much!!
-Hermana Mandy Boully

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