I hope you all are having a great week and are enjoying the start of 2015 so far!!
This past week went by in a blur and so I'm having a really hard time even thinking of anything to say right now! But I will try for you all. haha So much happens on any given day and within the week that my mind is always blank of specifics by this time.
I think I've become so used to the schedule that time is all blurring together. Our days all start with an hour of personal study and an hour of companion study. We read scriptures and talk about what we are going to teach that day. Then we have about 3 hours of language or learning about how to teach the gospel! Then all of a sudden its lunch time ( which is by far the best meal of the day here!). The afternoon passes quickly with more language, an hour of language activities on the computer, then P.E. then dinner then more language and teaching at night. I learn so much each day that I feel like I never have time to think or organize all that we learned together. You just have to do it as you go! Having said that, I absolutely love it. We learn so much and its truly amazing how much Spanish we are able to speak. Its hard when we get into topics or lessons that we haven't practiced as much yet because our vocabulary is more limited. We still make grammatical mistakes all over the place, but people are nice and can somewhat follow along which is encouraging!
This past week we had a lot of amazing devotionals that we all thought was amazing and helped me a lot! No matter what the topic, its always so helpful to hear the advice and instruction from church leaders. I always walk away feeling the Spirit so strongly and somewhat mind blown as well... I especially liked a devotional from Elder David A Bednar from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles! He spent the whole time just answering questions. The missionaries at the Provo MTC had submitted questions and he went through and answered/testified about several different topics. My favorite was when he spoke about the Book of Mormon! He said to imagine a board of truth with one nail in it. That nail is the Bible. It holds the truth down but the board can still be spun around. The Book of Mormon is the second nail, which holds the truths in place. With the Book of Mormon, God's truths are solidified and clarified! I absolutely loved this explanation of the importance and relevance of the Book of Mormon! It was amazing :)
Also on my birthday, we had the great privilege to have a live devotional here in the CCM from Elder Claudio D. Zivic of the First Quorum of the Seventy. I remember hearing him speak during General Conference during one of the more recent conferences. He and his wife spoke Spanish and I chose not to use the headsets for translation. It was amazing how much I was able to understand and that I could still learn from his talk and feel the Spirit! We all got to greet him afterward and it was fantastic! The Hermanas from my district and one of the districts prepared a musical number of "Come thou Fount of Every Blessing." We sang it in English and it was such a privilege to be able to sing for the devotional. My compañera and I had a small solo/duet in it which was nerve-wracking but still fun!
 |
| Hermana Graham & Hermana Larson |
They through confetti all over the room, which then got tract all over all the rooms! I wore an orange crown for most of the day and they decorated the kitchen with orange balloons. All their efforts were super sweet and they kept trying to do stuff for me all day like washing my plates. I was stubborn and didn't really let them (HA!) but it was so thoughtful and nice.  |
| Hermana Ah Quin, Fielding and Brown (left to right) |
Missionaries and teachers that I don't know very well all wished me a happy birthday and sang Happy Birthday several times throughout the day. The CCM is such a warm and loving atmosphere and it was only amplified! I feel so fortunate to be here with these people who are so full of love. It was a great day!!
I absolutely love the missionaries here. We actually just got a bunch of new missionaries! There's a district here going to the West Indies who are going to be teaching in English. I have jokingly started calling them the Gringos because they aren't learning Spanish. They're all really good sports though, as the rest of us are trying to use Spanish all the time. We also have a bunch of native Spanish speakers. There are 3 new Hermanas who only speak Spanish. They are so sweet and even though our conversations are limited, they are so nice and amazing! They help us with Spanish a lot!
 |
| Hermana Apelu (in my district) |
Also, some of the districts who were here before us are about to leave! Its absolutely insane to think of this place without them. We have all grown a lot closer, especially through meal times and Sunday nights when we get to use our cameras and go take pictures/walk around the temple. They are all so silly and genuine as well. They are great examples to me and I love hearing about their experiences and they go out and practice in the city with real missionaries! I am so excited to have the opportunity tomorrow to go to the university and speak with actual people. Last Friday, our teacher had us go over to the park next to the CCM (the one with all the Christmas lights). We went and had some short conversations with people and employees in the park. It was hard because our Spanish is still pretty poor. Even with that, Hermana Larson and I spoke with a woman and her daughter. This woman seemed really interested and so we gave her a pamphlet and Book of Mormon! It was so encouraging to be able to find some success in our efforts, even if most of our other conversations that day resulted in nothing.
Its crazy to think that I've already been here almost a month! It will be a crazy adjustment once I leave the CCM but I can't wait to be able to put what I'm learning into practice and be out in the real city with actual people! For now, I'm trying really hard to treasure my time here and learn as much as I can about the language and teaching the gospel. The harder I work here, the more I'll be able to help members and investigators once I'm out in the field!!
I hope you all have an amazing week!!
Con MUCHO AMOR!
Hermana Graham
No comments:
Post a Comment