This
is the happiest I've been in a long long time! My companion Elder
Christensen rocks (we have matching "Bumble" pajamas), my district
rocks, and my Spanish is not amazing but it would amaze you how much
progress I've had in one week! It's fun to learn and constantly practice
with fake investigators...constantly hahaha! I am learning that humor
is my lethal weapon against negativity and awkward situations, and
luckily the people in my district think I'm PRETTY funny hahahaha!!! I
honestly feel like my willingness to joke and break the ice has really
helped us because week one we were all kinda unsure of how we'd get
along, but now we are totally bonded. Like literally a few nights ago my
dorm was wheezing from laughter.... laughter about our VITAMINS. Trust
me, vitamins are comedy GOLD at the CCM *
[CCM is the Spanish acronym for Mission Training Center]. Really though, I love my
district and I have been able to find favor with them and my 4 different
teachers by being a goofball and helping relieve the stress that
occasionally comes to us all. I can buckle down when the time is
appropriate of course, however, I've been really seeking out fun and
laughter and finding it more than ever before! :)
So.
The food here is not great. However, that leads to great creativity and
some hilarious jokes haha! Somehow, my 21 year old Spanish teacher
convinced us all to try our pepperoni pizza with freaking NUTELLA on
it!!! like WUT!? and it was low-key pretty good...
But
ugh! I just love it here and have neither time nor resources to
adequately express that. Hopefully the pics help to prove it, although
they were basically all taken today because we are only allowed to use
our cameras on P-days :P
I love you family,
and I love you friends. It is my absolute joy and PRIVILEGE to carry
the name of my family and my Savior on my heart as I learn to serve
these beautiful souls around me. I am not perfect but throughout my life
I have been able to feel pieces of a perfect happiness. The CCM is no
exception, nor will the next two years be. Through my experiences thus
far, I am learning that it's not how we do in times of clarity and
brightness but how we persevere in mists of darkness that defines where
we end up and how happy we will be. I feel like I have become more in
this past week then I have over the past several months, and the thought
that that can continue is thrilling and awesome to me. Yes, I love you
and miss you all dearly, but I heard a very very inspiring saying from
some older Elders I love and greatly look up to:
"We
carry all the thoughts we have about things back home and things we
miss and want, and even who you once were in a metaphorical box when we
enter the mission. The key is to ship that box back home (often time and
time again) and you will find that everything that SHOULD be there
still will be."
I am in love with my time in
the CCM so far, and I feel confident that things will get harder as I am
away from my family longer, but I am also confident that the Lord will
carry me as I carry His message, and both of us will delight in it. I
have many a time been just overwhelmed with gratitude at my current
situation and I just can't fully express it. I wish I could show you
all of the weird green birds in the skinny strange trees, the awesome
people I serve with, the stinky food and the beautiful little sacrament
meetings and many Devotionals we hold here. I wish I could tell you all
the silly little inside jokes and the steady stream of laughter and
smiles I am a part of daily. I wish I could rejoice with you in the
service of my God and in my growing knowledge that He has a work for me
to do. Know that I pray for you guys constantly and I am excited to
reunite when I have done all I can do with these two years and when you
are finally ready to receive me again haha! ;)
I
know that this Church is true. I know Jesus Christ is the head of it. I
know that God wants to bless each of you, and I encourage you to humbly
seek Him out, knowing full well He anxiously waits for you.
P.S.
I have Moroni 10:5, The First Vision (16,17), The missionary purpose,
and a whole lot of words and phrases memorized in Spanish. Basically
what im tryna say... is I'm prrreeettyyy cool! ;) Hahaha!
Hope this letter made some sense... any sense! XD
