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 13th - 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 14th - 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 15th - 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 16th - 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 17th - 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 18th - 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 19th - 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
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