4 days until CALI!!

My goodness 6 weeks have flown by! Its crazy, I can’t believe it. And its my last p-day…until next Monday when I’m in California, which my p-days will be on Mondays from 10am-6pm just FYI. But this week has been overall pretty good. 

Thursday 20th: After emailing you guys last week our district played volleyball...and lets just say we aren't the best haha. But it has been so fun to hang out with our district, we have gotten so close and its going to be so sad to leave...but I’m just not going to think about that. The rest of the night was normal!

Friday 21st: Was a fantastic day! A little tired because at 4am there was this stupid little buzzing and it was freaking me out cause I kept thinking a bug was near my ear or in my hair, and the weird thing was that one of the other companions that sleeps on the bottom bunk had the same exact thing at 4 am…so bizarre. But thankfully it was only that night it happened. Hermana Usher and I taught Ramon and Enrique which both went really well. I’m starting to not write every sentence down that I’m planning to say in these lessons. I’m relying on the spirit and using what I know. It’s a confidence booster when I can say what I want and our investigators understand! And this all means that the Spanish is coming. Coming slowly, but its coming!!

(Me with two of my friends from my Mission Prep class at BYU-Idaho.)

Saturday 22nd: Normal day, classes were slow but that happens...and my brain is starting to hurt haha…plus I think I was just ready for Sunday! Hermana Usher and I had a nice long talk about past jobs, school, boys...don't judge, I know I’m on a mission haha, but it was nice to get to know her more. The more I find about her and the time I spend with her I love her more and more. My teacher challenged us both hablar solo espano hasta saliremos el CCM…yeah we'll see how that goes. It’s easy to talk all gospel phrases, but once you get to regular language that's where I get lost. We are trying our hardest! Later that night we studied Ether 12, and it talks about faith and I love the promises in that chapter about how our weaknesses will become strong when we have faith, are humbled, and rely on the grace of the Lord. And today I’ve been out EXACTLY 1 MONTH! CRAZY!

(Some pictures of me from last week that weren't able to send.)

Sunday 23rd: Relief society was great, we talked about the characters of Christ and then we watch a video 3 times that makes me cry each time that shows examples of Christ with these attributes. You NEED to watch this video-  https://www.lds.org/youth/video/christlike-attributes?lang=eng   (hopefully this link works for you guys) if not go to lds.org, youth, then down to videos, and the title of the video is Christlike Attributes. The video is pretty amazing. Sacrament meeting was good! Didn’t have to give a talk, so I only had to give one while being here, but I’m sure I’ll give a whole bunch once I’m in the ward in CA. For devotional we watched an MTC devotional from Elder Bednar, and man do I love hearing an Apostle speak! Then we watched a movie about two men that came upon the book of Mormon and knew without a doubt that it was true. Good movie, a tad bit cheesy haha. 

Monday 24th: So this dumb gross stomach virus is going around all the missionaries here and I’m washing my hands like crazy and not touching any hands or door nobs…my germ freakiness is coming out…haha. Two of our elders were sick and stayed in the houses for the rest of the night. And my companion was not feeling well either. The day was off and boring, so nothing too special happened. 

Tuesday 25th: More missionaries were sick and I was starting to not feel good and Hermana Usher was not feeling 100% yet. I’m stuck in these walls and I can’t get out to get away from the virus! Our elders keep joking about how this is where the zombie apocalypses starts haha…oh brother they are a riot. After lunch Hermana and I weren’t feeling too hot so we took an hour nap, and that helped some, and then for the rest of the night I was feeling somewhat better. But devotional was really good. He spoke English, which makes 3 devotionals in Spanish and 3 devotionals in English for us! He was in the 4th quorum, and he spoke about how we need to have a good attitude the entire time on our missions, about how to keep that fire burning inside you going, and how to encourage others to get that burning feeling again. It was perfect, because sometimes as a missionary you just want to give up and that burning feeling of I want to teach this everyone I know starts to dwindle. 

Wednesday 26th: Feeling a lot better than Tuesday. Not 100% better…but that’s okay. I don’t like being sick on a mission that’s for sure, and I hope this is the ONLY time I’m sick haha…I just jinxed myself didn’t I? Hermana Usher and I taught Ramon for the last time and its sad to think that we only have one more class with him! My morning teacher has been so good and so fun to have! He jokes around with us, but teaches us what we need at that moment. It’s perfect. After dinner we taught real investigators again, and it went well. A little rough in the beginning, but it ended really well and she prayed for us! 

Thursday 27th: LAST P-DAY IN THE CCM! Can’t believe time flies this fast. Its sad that everything is ending, but there is so many more exciting things coming ahead. I have loved my time here at the CCM but I’m ready for a change, to meet my trainer and to teach the people in California. And maybe show off the little Spanish I know haha. Today is normal, ran this morning, took some pictures, stared packing, laundry, etc. Lots to do before I leave on Monday! We leave the CCM at 3am to get to the airport for our flight at 7…looks like I’m not getting any sleep haha. 

Well thank you all for your emails and your support. I love reading everyone’s email. It makes me so happy! Also Aunt Kristi- I got your card thing! I love it! Thank you thank you! 

I love and miss you all and the next time I write you ill be in CALI!! 

Love, Hermana Aase 

I got to leave the prison walls!!

AHOLA FAMILIA!! CINCO SEMANA! (week 5!) Can you believe that? I cant haha… My time here at the CCM is going by so fast. I’m going to be really sad to leave here, to leave the friends I’ve made, to leave to beautiful city of Mexico. But then at the same time I’m ready for change, I’m ready to teach real investigators, and I’m ready for American food again. This week has been full of different events!

(The back of my missionary name tag)

Thursday 13^th - The mornings and afternoons of p-days are wonderful, but then the nights sometimes are not so wonderful. Today was one of those days. We taught our investigator Enrique, and Hermana Usher and I have been struggling with him.  He is really closed off and seems to be the hardest on us…not sure why, but he is. We brought our morning teacher as our member because he offered to help us out, and I was feeling really prepared for the lesson. We get in there and my mind goes blank. Hermana Usher taught the entire time and I said very few words. I don’t know what was wrong. I was really frustrated and on the verge of tears. And then afterwards we were doing language study outside and one of the Elders came over and asked me if I was doing okay, and at that point I just lost it, the tears stared to flow. My frustration over this language is starting to take its toll. But what I REALLY, REALLY need to remember is that I don’t have to be perfect, nor am I going to be perfect. I just need to be willing to do what the Lord asks me to do.

Friday 14^th - VALENTINES DAY! Our night teacher wrote all over the board and got us all a present haha it was pretty funny. I'll send you a picture of what it looks like in the next few emails. So when I got to breakfast, the elder that had asked me if I was okay Thursday night put a note underneath my tray that seriously made my entire day. He just reminded me that the Lord is always there and to not be so hard on myself, which was exactly what I needed to hear. The elders in our district are so nice. I love it.

(The Valentine's gift from my teacher)

Saturday 15^th - Was a fantastic day! We taught Ramon (our other investigator) and the lesson went so well. We invited him to be baptized and he said YES! Even though it isn’t real, it was still so exciting to hear that. And it boosted my confidence again. I know that the Lord is growing my confidence and helping me learn Spanish. Without him I don’t know where I´d be.

Sunday 16^th - So there are only 2 districts in our branch, so we have about 20 or so people in sacrament…really, really small. But it’s really good. Our branch president came up with a game for us to play, it was called Book of Mormon baseball where our two districts play against each other answering the most random questions from the BOM, and guess what?? WE WON! haha. We didn’t get anything, just the satisfaction of beating our other district. Later we watched a devotional from Elder L. Tom Perry about companionships and how to make them stronger. Really good talk. Then later we watched a movie about the time when Christ came to the Americas, and almost everyone in the auditorium was crying. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Movie Sundays!

Monday 17^th - I can’t believe it is the beginning of week 5! CRAZY! It is incredible to see the difference between who I was, what I knew, and my confidence level in week 1 to week 5. I’ve changed a bit. And it’s wonderful. We taught Enrique again tonight and the lesson went SUPER well. He opened up and we were able to share with him our knowledge and love of this gospel and he said yes to baptism too! BOTH INVESTIGATORS! haha. Afterwards we shared things we admire about each other in out district. I’m not ready to say goodbye to them…it is going to be so weird to not see all of them every single second of the day. It’ll be a hard last couple days before we all leave.

Tuesday 18^th - I keep saying how crazy it is, but 2 weeks from today I will be in California. AHHH…just so weird! But I’m excited! So Spanish is starting to become easier to teach, and I can say like 58% of what I say in English in my head, out loud in Spanish. I cant wait for that day when its 100%, or close to it. Devotional was really incredible tonight, and the speaker spoke all in Spanish and I understood like 70% of it and I was able to take 2 pages of notes.

Wednesday 19^th - The classes everyday are starting to go by faster, but we are still learning tons. The thing that I love is that we don’t only focus on learning the big concepts, but we focus on the little things, and the little things like smiling, looking at someone’s eyes, or your companion are so important when teaching. So later that day, Elder Anderson (the one that gave me the note) got a package in the mail... packages and letters are a HUGE deal here cause no one ever gets any because it take 6 weeks for anything to get here…it’s a little dumb. So back to him, he got a package and he opened it and it had all this American candy and A&W root beer, and he started to cry. He was so happy. The littlest things make missionaries the happiest. Seeing it, and since he was crying, it made Hermana Usher and I cry too…haha it was pretty hilarious. We should have taken a video of it. So on Wednesday nights we teach random people (missionaries, Latino missionaries, real investigators), and tonight we had to teach real investigators. I’m sure you can imagine what we were all feeling... pretty freaked out. But you know what we all came out of those lessons happy and excited. They weren’t horrible, maybe a little rough in the beginning, but they all ended really well. The spirit was guiding those lessons. I could feel it. Teaching these real investigators made me feel good about teaching in California. It made me think that I can REALLY do this. The Lord has called me to do this.

Today - So you are probably wondering about the title of my email this week...We got to go to the temple and the Visitors Center! It was weird leaving the prison walls of the CCM haha. But boy do we have it nice in here. We got to the temple about 9:20 and had time to take pictures, and then we had a tour for an hour and a half, which was really cool. Then we had about 30 min for extra time to go to the store, take more photos, etc. The technology at the Visitors Venter was incredible. I am way sad that we weren’t able to do a session in the Mexico temple…but being up close to it was still pretty awesome. I haven’t seen a temple since the time I went at home. Which feels like forever ago. But I took lots of photos and you´ll be getting lots :)

(At the Mexico City temple, and the Visitor's Center)

Well family I love you all so much! I love knowing that I have all these friends and family members supporting me. It’s so wonderful! Have an awesome week! And Ill talk to you next week! MY FINAL WEEK!!!

Love, Hermana Aase 

What an Up and Down Week!

FAMILY!  I love reading all the emails from you guys!  It makes my entire day and I try and hold out on emailing because I don’t want to get it over with.  But yeah, this week was really up and down…I’m good
now!  Just some rough patches in the middle.

So Friday was alright…I was really tired, and the day went by slow.  We taught one of our investigators (Enrique) and he was really hard to teach.  He was super closed and wouldn’t answer our questions…it was just awkward, and I tried to share my testimony and a scripture and I’m not sure how well that got through to him…and I know that’s what some real life people will be like…so its good (hard, frustrating) experience.

Saturday was a lot better.  All us missionaries were getting really hyped up for the dedication the next day. Something I learned was that God answers prayers, but sometimes he doesn’t until after we have faith - definitely something hard to learn until you experience it.

(I'm ALWAYS cold in the morning, so I sit with this blanket

around me, and my teachers laugh at me.) 

Sunday was really good! I had to give a talk in Spanish…!  It was on obedience, and I think it went pretty well…didn’t really understand what I was saying haha, but I think it went well. So hopefully I don’t have to speak again! And then the rest of the day went by fast until the dedication. The dedication was SO COOL, and so spiritual. I loved being in the presence of an apostle of the Lord. Elder Oaks gave a really good talk, and I took lots of notes. And with the broadcast, it was only broadcasted to stakes in Mexico, but keep looking for things on LDS.org, and BYU and all that. It’ll be up sooner than later. I wasn’t in the video either, but I was THERE!

Monday was good.  I’m staring to notice that I’m gaining weight…haha it’s all this Mexican food... what do I do!??!?!  haha…But yeah, just a normal day! Tuesday was good, was really tired and had a headache.  I’m having them a lot…I think it’s the stress, the altitude, and the constant Spanish/English translating I’m doing.

(This is Mexico behind me. these houses are beautiful, and I love looking at all the colors! I wish America could get away with that haha)

But the devotional was really good.  The Brother who spoke to us is the director of all the international MTC´s, and we got to see pictures of all the MTC´s around the world. Something that he said that really stuck out to me was ¨the more you focus on the edge, the center will take care of itself”, meaning the more we help each other and serve them and teach them the gospel, and the less we focus on ourselves and trying to change, we will be changed and we wouldn’t even know how it changed.

Now Wednesday…was a really hard day. We taught our other investigator and I felt really confident and ready, and then we go in there and I blanked and I couldn’t remember anything…it was bad, and I was just so frustrated, and I just sat outside for a minute and cried.  It was one of those days where I was wondering why I was on a mission and if this is what I’m supposed to do. But after lunch the day was a lot better. I was happy and confident and teaching later that night, and I could say what I wanted to say and all.  Also I got to be an investigator for other missionaries to teach, and it was an uplifting experience, and to see and feel how they were.

(This picture is of...not really sure what they are...and no one from Mexico does

either.  They look like lego hands haha, so I took a pic.)

It’s Thursday again…and I cant believe it!  They come so quick, and I only have 2 more p-days before I leave this place! I’m feeling both sad and ready to leave here, but I’m so grateful for all the people in my life and the example they are to me! I love you all! And I hope you have a wonderful week!

Love,  Hermana Aase

week 2 is already gone!

FAMILY!!! I was so excited to hear from all of you! I heard to seahaws won, and that they crushed the broncos…that’s a little sad…40 to 6…or something like that?  And Brody is still getting bigger? I had a dream the other day that I saw him and he was just this huge puffball! haha... made me laugh and miss him at the same time.

But this past week just flew by…I don’t know how it became p-day again…I mean I’m not complaining AT ALL…haha. But we had normal classes, and now we have class in the morning and at night, so lots of class, and study, and Spanish going on. But it’s good!

(me in front of the CCM map.  it's not as big as the one at the Provo MTC, but it works!)

I’m learning a lot of new things, its wonderful!  And get this…both my teachers are named Hermano Hernandez…it gets a little confusing.  And my Spanish is coming along better and faster than I thought.  I can say things that I want to without having to read it from PMG (Preach My Gospel) or what I wrote down.  It’s a great feeling, and a confidence booster. The spirit and the Lord are really helping me with this language.

We now have two investigators (both are my teachers), one in the morning and the other at night. They are really getting us ready for every kind of investigator out there haha. It’s good for us! Challenging, but good for us!

So everyday we get gym time and I’ve been playing volleyball! It’s been so fun! The boys get kinda intense and competitive, but I just let it slide haha.  And the weather has been so nice.  I think I’m getting tanner :) hopefully!

(a candy bar here in mexico...I love them and need to control myself cause they are yummy!)

Devotional on Sunday was really good! I wrote LOTS AND LOTS of notes. Oh and this is for PAIGE-- the speaker said this quote that I absolutely love, and I think you will love it too, and to design something with it.  It says - ¨Faith always points to the future¨, and seriously this is so true and I love it!   

Now on to other things…so I play kickball too some days, and I have a friend here that was in my mission prep class at BYU-Idaho, and he and his companions, and other companions yell ¨NO COQUETING¨ when I’m talking to a boy, which means NO FLIRTING haha…I think they just like to say that.  It’s pretty funny!

On Tuesdays we have devotionals, like I said last week, and we got dork dots again to listen to it in Spanish, and I actually understood almost everything the speaker was saying.  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday were normal, except! GUESS WHAT!  They are dedicating the CCM, like I said last week, and now I know who is coming-- Elder Oaks of the Quorum of the 12, and then some other general authorities.  It’s going to be great. AND, AND, AND, this guy was taking video of missionaries and the campus, and I got 2 shots on camera for the broadcast, so LOOK FOR ME! I’m guessing they are showing it on Sunday on BYU TV…but that’s a guess.

That’s pretty much all the exciting things going on here! Just trying to learn as much as I can, having fun, and loving this gospel more and more. I love you guys so much! And miss you tons! Talk to you in a week!

Love, Hermana Aase