First Transfer Complete!

Hey, hey!

So, my first transfer is over and I'm staying in Aurora! Which is exciting but a little scary at the same time because I'm companions with Hermana Adams and she's only been out for two transfers - her first transfer was here in Aurora and her second one was in an english speaking area, so basically we each only have 6 weeks of speaking spanish!!

Haha yesterday when the ward member found out that it was Hermana Adams and I staying there were a few of them that came up to us and were like, "if you need anything just call me. You can come over to our house any time you need to." And I'm sure they were thinking, "oh my heck, these poor sisters need all the help they can get..." and it's true! Hahaha :)

Hermana Adams and I dropped Hermana Lopez off at the mission home last night and she is currently on an airplane on her way home to Texas! Soooo crazy.

We all got to go to the temple last Friday for the departure session with President and Sister Ely. It was nice to go to the temple again! I got used to going every week in the MTC. It's a really pretty temple.

I really wish I could somehow convey people's voices over email because there are some stories that would be so much funnier if you could hear the people saying them! I will tell you this story and hope that it's still funny even though you can't hear the lady's voice :)

So the Relief Society president in our ward is this crazy old lady who speaks pretty good english but she has a super heavy accent. She's a nanny for the bishops kids who are CRAZY! I feel bad for her that she has to watch them because they're just wild little children.

So the other week were eating at her house and she was talking to us in english and she was talkin about how crazy the kids were being the day before and she said "sometimes I just have to threathen them that I'll do things I really never would do just so they'll listen to me! Like yesterday it was time for their nap and Yesenia and Kimberly were jumping on the their beds and I said, 'if you two don't stop jumping and go to sleep I'm going to go get the dog leash, tie you up in the closet and shut the door!'

And Kimberly real quick laid down and went to sleep, but Yesenia, oh Yesenia, she just wouldn't stop! So I grabbed her and put her in the closet and said, 'you stay right here! I'm going to get the dog leash!' and she looked up at me terrified and said, 'no! Hermana, I'll go to sleep! I promise!' so I said, 'you better!'"

Hahaha we were laughing SO hard when she was telling us this story! She's the craziest old lady! She said she has to tell the bishop that his daughters will tell him stuff she almost did to them, but not to worry about it because she never will, she just had to threaten them! Haha :)

So we've got two baptisms set for July 2nd, Cesar and Nancy, and one on the July 9th - my personal favorite, Genesis! The other day one of the elders asked me who my favorite investigator was and before I could answer Hermana Lopez was like, "I know - Genesis!" Haha she's just so cute :) She's such a good kid and she just wants so badly to be even better! She came to church yesterday too! She says she really likes it :)

The missionaries actually started teaching her mom before her and her mom has to work every sunday and Gensis is just so sad that her mom's not able to go to church. And I was about to drop her mom as an investigator because she just seems to lack motivation to change, she likes hearing our message and participating, but she just doesn't do stuff like read and pray unless we're there. But I'm hoping that seeing her daughter get baptized will give her the motivation she needs.

Well, this is kind of a boring letter, but not a whole ton happened this week!

I love you all very, very much :)

-Kelsey

First Transfer Complete!

Hey, hey!

So, my first transfer is over and I'm staying in Aurora! Which is exciting but a little scary at the same time because I'm companions with Hermana Adams and she's only been out for two transfers - her first transfer was here in Aurora and her second one was in an english speaking area, so basically we each only have 6 weeks of speaking spanish!!

Haha yesterday when the ward member found out that it was Hermana Adams and I staying there were a few of them that came up to us and were like, "if you need anything just call me. You can come over to our house any time you need to." And I'm sure they were thinking, "oh my heck, these poor sisters need all the help they can get..." and it's true! Hahaha :)

Hermana Adams and I dropped Hermana Lopez off at the mission home last night and she is currently on an airplane on her way home to Texas! Soooo crazy.

We all got to go to the temple last Friday for the departure session with President and Sister Ely. It was nice to go to the temple again! I got used to going every week in the MTC. It's a really pretty temple.

I really wish I could somehow convey people's voices over email because there are some stories that would be so much funnier if you could hear the people saying them! I will tell you this story and hope that it's still funny even though you can't hear the lady's voice :)

So the Relief Society president in our ward is this crazy old lady who speaks pretty good english but she has a super heavy accent. She's a nanny for the bishops kids who are CRAZY! I feel bad for her that she has to watch them because they're just wild little children.

So the other week were eating at her house and she was talking to us in english and she was talkin about how crazy the kids were being the day before and she said "sometimes I just have to threathen them that I'll do things I really never would do just so they'll listen to me! Like yesterday it was time for their nap and Yesenia and Kimberly were jumping on the their beds and I said, 'if you two don't stop jumping and go to sleep I'm going to go get the dog leash, tie you up in the closet and shut the door!'

And Kimberly real quick laid down and went to sleep, but Yesenia, oh Yesenia, she just wouldn't stop! So I grabbed her and put her in the closet and said, 'you stay right here! I'm going to get the dog leash!' and she looked up at me terrified and said, 'no! Hermana, I'll go to sleep! I promise!' so I said, 'you better!'"

Hahaha we were laughing SO hard when she was telling us this story! She's the craziest old lady! She said she has to tell the bishop that his daughters will tell him stuff she almost did to them, but not to worry about it because she never will, she just had to threaten them! Haha :)

So we've got two baptisms set for July 2nd, Cesar and Nancy, and one on the July 9th - my personal favorite, Genesis! The other day one of the elders asked me who my favorite investigator was and before I could answer Hermana Lopez was like, "I know - Genesis!" Haha she's just so cute :) She's such a good kid and she just wants so badly to be even better! She came to church yesterday too! She says she really likes it :)

The missionaries actually started teaching her mom before her and her mom has to work every sunday and Gensis is just so sad that her mom's not able to go to church. And I was about to drop her mom as an investigator because she just seems to lack motivation to change, she likes hearing our message and participating, but she just doesn't do stuff like read and pray unless we're there. But I'm hoping that seeing her daughter get baptized will give her the motivation she needs.

Well, this is kind of a boring letter, but not a whole ton happened this week!

I love you all very, very much :)

-Kelsey

Hey Hey!

So, there is this family, the Bailon family, who I loooove! There two daughters who are 18 and 14 are some of my FAVORITE people out here :) But the parents have been converts for like a year and a half I think, the 14 year old has been a member for about a year and the 18 year old just got baptized in January! So they are all fairly recent converts (there's 2 daughters under the age of 8 and one 16 year old boy who is taking the lessons currently) and they're really strong in the church and a couple weeks ago we found out they were getting sealed in the temple! We were so excited for them!! Then two days later Hna. Bailon was crying at church and said that the sealing was off because she felt like she didn't know enough and was kind of freaking out. She didn't straight up say she was freaking out, but I could tell.

Then on Tuesday at Institute we found out it was back on! We were happy again! Then on Thursday we went over to their house and everyone was super awkward and quiet and looked down and Hna Bailon was avoiding us at all costs. So I asked Carmen, the 14 year old, if they were going to the stake activity the on Saturday and she was like, "no. My mom doesn't want to go. She doesn't want to go to church anymore and she doesn't want to talk to anyone. She's not even talking to us anymore." I was like, "what?!" So we left and told the girls that if they needed anything to call us.

So we prayed for them, A LOT, those next couple days and on Saturday we saw them pull up the stake activity and we were SOOO excited! Hna. Bailon even brought a lady she had just met a couple days ago who did her daughters nails and the lady was interested in the church. She even brought the lady to church the next day. So a few days after church, I guess like a week ago, we went over because they had questions about the sealing and temple and stuff and Hna. Bailon said that the last week she was having a really hard time with everything and so she just decided to call the sealing off. She didn't want to go to church, she didn't want to talk to any members, she didn't want anything to do with the church. 

Then she took her daughter to get her nails done and the lady started asking her questions about the church and she said she REALLY didn't want to answer the lady's quesionts, but then she said, "I realized it would so selfish and ungrateful of me to NOT share this message with other people. I thought about all the blessings it's brought me in my life and how wrong it is to not let other people know about it."

This story just makes me laugh because Hna. Bailon was dead set on not getting sealed or talking to anyone in the ward, or even her own kids for that matter, but Heavenly Father knew EXACTLY what she needed, she needed someone to ask her about it so she could realize how blessed she's been to have this in her life and how amazing this gospel is. It just reiterated just how much Heavenly Father knows is individually and he knows perfectly well what we need in our lives.

So, the sealing is back on (this Saturday and we get to go!) and everything is seemingly great. I'm super excited to go to their sealing - it's going to be awesome!

Ok, I know I wrote about Genesis the 15 yeard old girl last week, but I will probably write about her every single week because I just LOVE this girl! So, on Tuesday we left her a For the Strenght of the Youth booklet and on Saturday we stopped by to see if she could go to church on Sunday so we could have the Bailons pick her up and we ended up teaching her a lesson, but before we started the lesson lesson I asked her if she had read some of the booklet and if she had any questions about it. She said, "Yeah, I read it-" And at this point I cut her off and said, "you read the whole thing?!" And she was like, "yeah!" So I said, "que bueno!!" Haha :) But then she continued and was like, "I read it, but I felt sad (and I thought, oh crap, what is she going to say? Does she not want to be baptized anymore??) because it says not to have tattoos and I do." And then I just wanted to laugh because she's so stinkin' cute! Then she was saying how much she regrets it and how she wishes she hadn't done it because people judge you buy your outward appearance. So I told her that it doesn't matter who she was (which I HIGHLY doubt she was ever a horrible kid because she's just so good!) in the past, it only matters how she acts now and that it doesn't matter what other people think.

She also has a tiny little nose ring and she said something about it saying that in the pamphlet too. So we taught about the Word of Wisdom and invited her to keep it and I know she totally will because she's amazing like that. SO, she FINALLY was able to come to church yesterday and we had the Bailons pick her up and at the beginning of church I could tell she was quite uncomfortable, which is totally understandable, but she seemed to get along with Carmen quite well (which I'm glad because Carmen could be a real brat if she wanted to :) ) and she met  a lot of the other girls and after church she seemed a lot more comfortable and said she really liked it! Oh! She also took her nose ring out which made me smile :)

There happened to be a baptism after church so she stayed for that too and she thought it was pretty cool! I asked her what she thought of everything and if it was weird and she just smiled and said, "it was a little weird, but I really liked it! I just wish my mom would come." And I asked her if the girls were nice to her and she said yeah! I asked Carmen what she thought of her and she's like, "she's cool! We were like.... laughing." Hahaha :)

Those are the two main stories of the week. It's kind of been a slow-ish week. Well, not slow but uneventful I guess. Some stories I would tell but I think they're only funny if you actually know the people, just because of their personalities and they way they talk. I wish I could somehow portray that over email :) 

Oh! I  guess this was quite the event - we are now a trio! Meaning there's three of us instead of two of us :) Last Wednesday we got a call from our mission pres. and he was like, "hey, do you guys have room for one more person?" so we said, "um, yeah." When really there's not any room, but we decided we'd be nice and make room :) But her name is Hermana Adams and her companion went back home to Kentucky for some reason so she joined our little companionship. But, here's the scary part... She came out one transfer before me (I actually met her in the MTC!), so 6 weeks before me, and Pres. said Hna Adams and I would probably stay here next transfer, which is SUPER exciting because that's what I wanted, but horribly horrifying because neither of us really even know Spanish!! It'll be tough if it really does happen but it'll be the best way to learn Spanish. I'm just worried I won't be able to teach people and fail miserably... haha :) But, I guess that's what relying on the Spirit is for :)

Well, I guess that is pretty much all for the week... I will write again next week and hopefully have some more interesting things to say :)

I loooooooove you all :)

-Kelsey

Hello everyone!

Let me tell you what, it's been quite a challenge getting to this point of writing my email... yesterday was Memorial Day so all the libraries were closed, so we were told we could come today. First we tried to go to the library super close to it, it's closed on Tuesday. Then we tried to go to another one about 10 minutes away, it doesn't open until 12. Then we went to this other library that GPS told us to go to, it was not there anymore. So, I'm FINALLY here :)

So.... where to start? Well, I've learned a new phrase from Kentucky that is quite weird: Burnt-slap up. It means hot. Like if you're outside and you get hot you say, "man, I'm burnt-slap up!" Weird, I know, but I guess that's the way it is. There's this Sister from Kentucky here and she said that and I was like, "what the crap does that mean?!" It's so funny to meet all these different people and hear the different phrases they use in their hometowns :)

Something they don't warn us about before coming and teaching Hispanics is that they talk FOREVER! Sometimes we have an hour lesson and only teach for like 15 minutes because they talk, and talk, and talk! We can't just stop by when we have an extra 10 minutes because we know we'll be there for at LEAST 45 minutes. It's ridiculous! I guess it's good in a way because than we really get to know them and understand what they're needs are. But sometimes I'm like, "seriously? How are you even able to talk this much?"

Remember Tony? Well, he came to church AGAIN! We were SO happy! It's pretty rare to have investigators come to church twice in a row, but ESPECIALLY when you've only taught them one lesson! We've tried to get in to see him again but twice we've gone and he hasn't been there because he's forgotten. So, we need to start calling him the night before to remind him. That happens soooo frequently, people are either forgetting their appointments and they're purposely gone when our appointment is - sometimes I can't figure out which one :) With Tony though I think he just genuinely forgets!

After church I asked him what he learned in class and he said "I learned there's more to the 10 commandments than I thought there was! Like with adultery  you don't have to actually be commited it, just looking at a girl and wanting to is a sin. When I heard that I was like, 'oh shoot!!'" Hahaha I laughed so hard :) But he seemed a lot more comfortable this week and he seemed a lot happier too! I'm so excited to teach him (if we can ever get in to see him!)

This last week I met the daughter of one of the investigators who's 15, her name is Genesis, and she's been taught a couple times before, been given a Book of Mormon, but she has been gone like the last 5 weeks the missionaries have gone over. So, she was finally there today and she is so stinkin' cute! And she asks really good questions so we know she's really listening and thinking about the stuff we're teaching her, like we were reading in 1 Nephi somewhere and she asked "so, what happens to people like in North Korea who don't have the opportunity to hear about this stuff on the earth?". She just seems super ready to accept the gospel so I'm excited to teach her too!

At the end of our lesson with her and her mom we invited them to pray about what we had talked about that day and she said, "last time I prayed I just felt so peaceful and so calm. I don't know why!" And both Hermana Lopez and I just started smiling because we were so excited that she had felt the Spirit! So we told her that is was the Spirit and she just smiled. But, she's way stinkin' cute and I can just tell she's a really good person.

So the Elders had a baptism on Saturday of this cute old lady who's 70-something years old! She was really excited and said she felt really peaceful and calm, and then she didn't show up on Sunday to get the gift of the Holy Ghost! I felt so bad for the Elders, they were super bummed because they were worried on Friday she was going to bail on them. They tried calling her but she didn't answer, so I hope she didn't freak out and that she'll come to church next week!

There's 6 missionaries in our ward here and we all had kind of a crappy week! Tons of our appointments cancelled, a lot of our investigators didn't come to church, etc. etc. But, this week will be better! By the way, if any of you are asked to go out with the missionaries and you tell them you'll go, please go! It's uber frustrating when we can't go teach a single man because we had set up with a priesthood holder to come and then they bail on us. It's funny the things you think about once you're a missionary that you never had thought too big of a deal of before :)

Everything is going quite good here -- especially the food! It's SO delicious! The Elders told me I had to try this soup and it's got cow stomach, corn and something else in it, so I did and they were all shocked I actually did it! It really didn't taste bad, but the texture of it was quite nasty! It gives me the chills a little bit to think of it :)

Hahaha last night we had dinner with La Familia Pizarro and their little 3 year old granddaughter was there and her brother who's like 10 came in and was like, "who drank all the orange soda?" And his grandma (the one that was feeding us) says, "it wasn't me or grandpa because we only drink diet." So the boy just jokingly looks and the dog and says, "she probably drank it!" And the little first says, "don't look at her! She didn't drink it! She's a girl -- she drinks diet!!" Hahaha we all laughed so hard! She's only 3 and she's already got that whole idea about girls needs to drink diet soda!

I'm slowly, very very slowly, starting to understand a little bit more Spanish than when I first got here. I don't get too frustrated unless I study Indirect and Direct object pronouns because I never understand that and I get frustrated when people talk to me and just expect me to understand them and get irritated when I don't because they know I've only been here for three weeks! But I love when people are surprised to find out that I've only been here for three weeks because they say I speak Spanish pretty well -- that always makes me happy :)

This ward has really been trying to help get the members involved in doing missionary work, like giving the missionaries references, talking to their non-member friends and family about the gospel but people are just so scared to do it (which I don't blame them, I was too before my mission) so tonight Hermana Lopez and I are doing a little lesson about how it's our responsibility to share the gospel with others and then we're going to have them role-play talking to their friends about the church and giving them a Book of Mormon. Hopefully it will help!

It's CRAZY how many people there are that are less-active. I didn't realize how many there were, not just here but all over the world, until coming on my mission. There are SO many people who get baptized and then a month or two later become inactive. It's pretty crazy.

Well, I must get back to the world of missionary work now. I will write next week (hopefully we don't have library problems... haha )

Love you guys :)

Hey Hey! We're The Monkeys. (That song has been stuck in my head all week)

Hi everybody!

 

So, I accidentally left my planner at the house and it had all my notes of things I wanted to write, so I hope I remember everything!

 

Last Sunday we got a referral for this guy named Tony, so we called him and set up an appointment and he seemed super nice. So we went over on Wednesday morning and taught him the first lesson, but he told his a ton of his life story and I thought it was quite interesting... He grew up catholic but they didn't really go to church at all and he never really read the bible or prayed. So now he's 29 years old, not married, doesn't have a girlfriend and he's got at least 4 kids who don't live with him. So he used to be in a gang and he said he's done pretty much every illegal thing in the book except for rape. He went to prison when he was 21 (we're not quite sure for what, and we probably don't want to know), but he was in prison for 5 and a half years! During this time he started reading the Bible. He read it all the way through and started to change his life, he decided he wasn't going to smoke or drink anymore. So he gets out of jail (I think about 2 years ago) and continues to live his new life of no drinking, smoking, and actually obeying the law :) But he said it's super hard because his friends and family all still smoke and drink and they always bug him to do it, they just don't understand it, and he doesn't want to leave his friends behind because he'll feel bad.

 

But as he was talking I was just thinking, "oh my crap, he has TOTALLY been prepared for our message!" So he keeps talking and all the sudden he's like, "yeah, sometimes I wonder what the purpose of life is." And I had to keep myself from laughing and yelling "that's exactly what our message is about!!" I almost started laughing because of how ridiculously ready he is to hear this message! We invited him to read the intro of the Book of Mormon and come to church on Sunday and he said he would. I've begun to notice how hard it is to get people to commit to things, or they will commit to reading or praying or whatever, but it's surprising if they follow through. So he said he's read the intro AND come to church and he seemed like he genuinely meant it.

 

We called him on Saturday night to remind him of church and he seemed a little iffy about it but on Sunday he showed up! After sacrament (oh yeah, I had to give a talk in sacrament, in SPANISH! yesterday... .hahaha it was actually fine, I just wrote it on a piece of paper and read it straight from that :) ) I asked him how how it was and he said, "good." and I was like, "did you think it was weird?" And I just laughed and he smiled and was like, "yeah, a little bit!" Haha but I think he liked it! AND he actually read the intro of the Book of Mormon, so I think the fact that he actually kept his commitments from the very first time we met with him just shows how ready he is! I'm super, super excited to teach him!

 

So Hermana Lopez and I actually live with some members, not of our ward, but he's the bishop of an english speaking ward in our area and they're nice enough to let the Spanish speaking sisters stay with them. But, they have these little neighbors who come over to their house all the time and kids aren't members so they're super fascinated with the missionaries. The boy's name is Bradley and he's like 3 or 4 and yesterday he was over while I was eating lunch and he came over and said in his cute little voice, "Hi Sister Robert!" So I said, "Hi Bradley!" while I had food in my mouth and he says, "Hey, don't talk with your mouth full!" Hahahaha I laughed so hard! He's so cute :) He thought it was pretty weird my name was Sister Roberts :)

 

So when we have dinner appointments we share a message at the end and Hermana Lopez has this favorite story of hers that she shares and it's about this women who is super, super poor and is homeless and has a tiny little baby to support, but she doesn't have a job, house, money, nothing. One day this man walks by and she asks him for help so he says he has a house and she can go in for exactly one minute and get anything that she needs for her baby and then after the minute the door automatically shuts and locks and she can't go back in. At this point we asked the people what they would grab, and most people say either food, clothes (one lady said a cow, I'm not sure who keeps cows in their house, but whatever...haha) or money.

 

Well, the other night we had dinner with the Relief President and we got done with dinner and told her the story and asked her what she would get and she looked us in the eye and said "a bible." Hermana Lopez and I just sat there for a second and stared at each other because we were so shocked by the answer! We asked her why and she said, "because it's the word of God. If I have that and the Book of Mormon than nothing else matters." And some people I think would just say that because they knew that was the "right answer" or whatever, but she was totally genuine. It was just amazing though because honestly out of all the time Hermana Lopez has told that story I have never once that about getting the BOM or the Bible.

 

So the end of the story goes that the lady grabbed the stuff and ran out of the house just and just as she shut the door she heard it lock. She got out and caught her breath and then realized she had left the baby in the house! So the point of the story is that Heavenly Father (the man) lets us come to the Earth for "one minute", but if we get so distracted by the materialistic things and all the hundreds of other distractions in this life then we forgot what's really important in this life. And it's doing the simple things everyday, like reading the scriptures and praying that help keep us focused on the real goal -- eternal life and joy.

 

I'm starting to be able to understand more and more Spanish (slowly, very slowly) but I still just sit and listen most the time :) Haha, last night we went to visit these investigators and there was a lady there who is a member and she's friends with them, and the lady, Hermana Fryer, speaks english as her second language (she knows quite a bit of english, but she's not fluent) and her niece was there and her niece was telling me about this work in Peru that they use all the time and they were trying to figure out what the english translation would be and they were like, "would it be shoot, dang, etc?" And Hna Fryer yells, " I know!" And she proceeds to say the d word like three times and we all just started busted up laughing and Hna Lopez was like "haha don't say that!" and she just covered her mouth and was like "Sorry!" Haha it was so funny :)

 

There was a baptism on Saturday of this kid who's probably like 16 and next week his sister is getting baptized! It's always interesting to me when teenagers and people from their 20's-late 30's want to change their lives and get baptized. I don't know why, but it just seems so amazing to me that people at that age, especially the teenagers, would have such a strong desire and that they would care so much. I just wonder what exactly got them to that point that they want to change when they are probably going to have to get new friends and stop doing all these things like smoking and drinking. I don't know, it's interesting, but I guess it just goes to show that the gospel can change anyone.

 

All the time I wish that I was a convert because I wish SO badly that I could see things the way people who have never heard about the church or the Book of Mormon or about all these different things. I don't know, I think it would be super interesting to understand exactly what they were thinking and how they were feeling as we were teaching them.

 

Will you all pray for the investigators out there in the world as well as the missionaries? Gracias :)

 

Well, I gotta go, but I will write next week!

 

I love you all sooooo stinkin' much :)

 

-Kelsey

First Week in the Field

So, it has officially been a week and it feel like I've been here forever! But not in a bad way, it just feels like I've been here forever because of all the many things we do in one day!

 

The people here are super, super nice and even though I've only met most of them like once I already love them :) The first day we got here we taught two lessons (well, I mostly just sat and listened because I had no idea what they were saying....haha) and then we went tracting and I gave out two Books of Mormon! It's a little intimidating knocking on random people's doors and telling them about the church, but once I start doing it it's really not that bad.

 

My companion's name is Hermana Lopez and she's from Texas! She's a native speaker which is super nice because I can ask her for help on my horrible Spanish. The funny thing is that because she's a native if I ask her if something is conditional, or why this word goes there or ask her about indirect and direct objects she's like, " I have no idea! That's just the way it is!" But I totally understand because I had absolutely no idea what those were until I started learning Spanish :) I've decided the best way to learn English is to learn another language, you learn so much about english!

 

So the first day we got here we went to the meet one of the counselors in the Relief Society Presidency and they were eating dinner (Oh, we had a dinner appointment in like an hour) but we told them we had an appointment and we weren't really hungry, BUT they forced us to eat :) And then I was cutting my meat with my fork and knife and they were like, "use your fingers! use your fingers!" so they made me just tear it apart with my hands... hahaha it was so funny!  The food is soooo good though!

 

The second day we went and talk this man, Fidel, and he is a super, super nice guy. He's been a little iffy about letting the missionaries come over and teach him, but he's reading the Book of Mormon and he really loves reading it, but we WON'T pray specifically about it and ask if it's true and just from the first time meeting him I can tell he KNOWS it's true already, but he won't pray about it because then he'll know he knows it's true! Oh, he also wouldn't even start reading the BOM because one of his co-workers told him that when his dad read the promise in Moroni that he instantly started to feel it was true, so Fidel wouldn't even OPEN the book because he didn't want to feel that!

 

It's weird, I don't know why he's so scared to feel that it's true. He's a super, super nice guy and he really wouldn't have to change his lifestyle at all! He doesn't smoke or drink or anything! So we just keep praying he'll have the desire to know he knows it's true :)

 

So we already have an investigator with a a baptismal date! Her name is Isabela Simon and I feel super bad for her, she's got a rough life. She's 40, has three children and the two oldest are from a different dad than her youngest one. She's divorced from her first husband and her boyfriend that she had the third baby with got deported back to Mexico. So, she's single, has three kids and absoultely no money (she used her last 5 dollars to pay a taxi to take her to church yesterday because she understand how important it is to come to church!) and no permanent place to stay. Her kids are 13, 11, and 7 months and the older two are mad at her because of their life situation so she just cries when we teach her because she feels like she's a horrible mother and is scared about what's going to happen to them.... It's ridiculous how blessed we are and we don't even realize it!

 

But, she's super excited to get baptized! We told her to just keep praying, reading the BOM, and have faith.

 

The people here are super nice and they always are super willing to help me with my Spanish :) We were at the ward mission leaders house the other day and his wife asked me something in Spanish and I knew she said something about the amount of time someone had been a member of the church for so I assumed she was talking about me so I answered that I'd been a member my whole life and she said, "No...." and asked me again. So, I just sat there and was trying to figure it out in my head and her husband said (in english) "She asked like what generation you are of being a member in your family." And she hits him and says, "Only speak in Spanish to her!!" Haha it was so funny :) But it's true, I just need to keep hearing and speaking it, if they speak english to me than I'll never learn spanish very well :)

 

A lot of them do speak English really well so it's nice because if I have no idea how to say a word they tell me what it is in spanish :) But, most the time I really just sit there and have absoultely no idea what's going on! I can understand a ton of stuff about the gospel because that's practically all we learned in the MTC, but when Hna. Lopez starts talking to them about every day things I just sit and listen really hard and hope one day I'll be able to understand them :)

 

The kids here are so stinkin' cute! They don't even know me and they run up to me and give me hugs :) They all speak really good spanish and english and I have no idea why, but I think it's SOOOO cute when they speak spanish!! :)

 

Yesterday we had 5 investigators at church and that's the most Hermana Lopez says she's EVER had! Oh, and this is her last transfer, so that's the most she's ever had in the entirety of her mission! It was pretty cool. I just say hi to everyone and I meet like 30 people a day so I don't remember their names but one of the investigators came and Hermana Lopez was super disappointed we didn't get to say hi to her and church because she (the investigator) left super fast, so we called her after and Hna. Lopez told her she was sorry we didn't get to talk to her at church and over the phone I hear our investigator tell her that she met her companion and church and I just started laughing and Hermana Lopez knows I don't remember anyones name I meet so she explained that and that I met a gazillion people at church and didn't remember her so I told the investigator sorry and she just started laughing :)

 

Oh! And Saturday one of the members took 10 of us missionaries out to breakfast at this buffet and she is the funniest lady! Her name is Hermana Unger and I have a feeling this story sums up her life: She moved to Utah from Venezuela a LONG time ago. When she moved there she assumed everyone was LDS, so she got married and THEN discovered that her husband wasn't LDS! Hahaha I have no idea how they dated and never talked about religion, or going to church together!

 

Apparently every time she takes the missionaries out to breakfast (every other week) she picks on this one elder, Elder Budge, EVERY time! He said sometimes she picks on him for not eating enough food, or the right type of food, or for speaking spanish to her and then for speaking english to her - so basically whatever he does she picks on  him :) But this time it was because he touched his watermelon and then ate it and she says to him (in her spanish accent) "what you touching your food for? you might as well touch everything and then eat it with your hands!!" Hahaha we were all trying so hard not to laugh!! It was great :)

 

Well, my time is almost up, but I love it here! And hopefully one day I'll be able to understand what people are saying to me and I'll be able to respond :)

 

I miss you all SOOOOOO much and love you even more! :)

 

Looooooove,

Hermana Roberts!

Last P-Day in the MTC!

So, on my rush to get over here I forgot the paper that had everything that I wanted to write about.... hahaha, so sorry if this email is lame.

 

Let's see, obviously I am super excited because this is my last week in the MTC! I leave on Monday and I'm so super excited/ a little bit nervous. Mostly I'm just nervous about the Spanish, but that will come as I go along my mission and have to hear it and speak it all the time. Our teachers have warned us that we might be learning a lot of Spanglish since we're serving in the States, which I hope isn't true for me because I want to learn legit Spanish! :)

 

So this week we had our last TRC (the place where we go practice teaching and there's volunteers from the outside world) but this week there weren't enough volunteers so we had our teacher just pretent to be an investigator so we had someone to teach. She played a real investigator that she had on her mission, and we had to teach her the second lesson (The Plan of Salvation) in Spanish along with Tithing. So, we start teaching and everything is going fine, but then she just wasn't understanding the importance of the stuff that we were teaching her and we had her read scriptures to try and help her understand the questions she had and the scriptures totally answered the questions, it just wasn't clicking in her head. So that was a little bit frustrating, but then she's leaning forward on the table and is resting her head with her hand under her chin and I'm talking and all the sudden her eyes close and I chuckled and was like esta bien?" and she's flings her eyes open and is like, "¨¡sí!" so then I was trying WAY hard not to laugh! I was really trying to contain myself because I didn't think it would be very good if I just started busted up laughing!

 

Anyways, we finished the lesson and it was probably the most horrible lesson we've taught (even worse than our very first lesson ever when we got here) and I was a little bit frustrated but mostly I just couldn't stop laughing and how funny it was that she had "fallen asleep" during our lesson! But our teacher afterwards said she really taught someone like that and she worked all through the night at the airport so whenever they taught her she was super exhausted and had a hard time staying awake. And I'm sure it will happen in the field too, so it was a good experience I guess :)

 

So normally people only have 2 or 4 teachers during their MTC time, but we've counted and our district has had 9!! It's crazy! We've had so many substitutes. We got a totally brand new teacher last week but then he got married so we had a sub for him, but then the sub when to Mexico yesterday so we have another sub today. So basically we have a sub for the sub. Haha it's crazy! It's interesting though because they all teach so differently and they all teach you the things that they think are the most important, so I like it in that aspect that we get to see what all these people think is the most important part of being a missionary.

 

The Spanish is coming along fairly well! I'm still having a hard time with the grammer stuff, but I know I've learned a ton more than when I first got here! And I try not to dwell too much on the grammar stuff because I know that they still understand me (for the most part...haha). But I'm really grateful that I'm able to learn Spanish and I'm sure it will be useful for the rest of my life!

 

The very first day new missionaries come to the MTC they do this teaching demonstration thing where basically this huge group of new missionaries come in and they sit down and there's a fake investigator in this room and two missionaries who have been in the MTC for a while come in and begin the first part of teaching so the new missionaries are able to see how it works. Honestly, the missionaries we had in our demonstration were not that great and I didn't learn a whole lot from it :) But, last night Hermana Johansen and I got volunteered to be the missionaries doing the demonstration and it was SO crazy to think that we were in the same spot as the new missionaries but we were there 8 weeks ago! It doesn't feel like it was that long ago AT ALL! It's insane, but I'm definitely ready to leave the MTC.

 

The other day I was writing in my journal and I thought, "I wonder how long it's going to take me to fill this up. Then I'll have to go buy a new one." And then I realized that I would be out in the field and I could go to a NORMAL STORE and buy any journal that I wanted!! Haha it was so funny, I was like, "oh my heck! That's going to be so weird!!" But then it also got me super excited! I'm excited to be able to go teach real people and to be forced to speak Spanish so I can learn it better and quicker! It's going to be exciting, but I'll probably be freaking out a little bit on Sunday night :)

 

There's 6 people in our district and 2 of us are leaving this Monday and then the rest are leaving on Wednesday and they're all so jealous! I know 2 days doesn't sound like much, but it can feel like an eternity when it comes to MTC time :)

 

I'm trying to think of what else happened this week................. we went to the temple this morning for the last time! I wonder how often I'll be able to go once I'm in Denver. I've heard it totally depends on your mission president, but I hope I'm able to go at least a couple time while I'm out in the field.

 

I've been reading Jesus the Christ lately and I recommend you all read it! It's a HUGE book and he uses big words, but it's really good. It's interesting reading stuff like that and getting a new perspective on things, but I love it. I have to be in the right mood to read it or else everything just goes over my head and I have no idea what it's saying :)

 

The other thing I am MOST excited for is that on Monday I will be able to listen to music finally!! Not that we haven't listened to ANY music here, but we're not even allowed to listen to hymns in our classrooms while studying, and that's what I'm most excited about, is listening to hymns while I'm studying because that helps me a lot. My teacher yesterday was talking about a really cool version of Come Thou Fount he likes and the rest of the day I so badly wanted to listen to the version I had! And I said, "Thanks a lot, Hermano Airmet! Now I REALLY, REALLY want to listen to that song!" And he's all, "don't worry Hermana Roberts, just wait until Monday..." But Monday seems really far away sometimes :)

 

I'm pretty sure that when I come home I am going to sleep for two weeks straight, so no one bother me when I come home :) I don't believe I will ever get used to waking up at 6:30, but it's all good because it's for 16 months and that's really not that long in the grand scheme of things.

 

Well, sorry if this email is boring and really random :) Next week I'll remember to bring my paper of good things I want to talk about!

 

I will write you all next week sometime! I'm not sure when because my P-day will probably be different, but I miss you and love you ALL!

 

-Hermana Roberts

Hola!

Lo siento, they totally changed our P-day last week and they didn't even tell us so we could warn our family that we wouldn't be emailing them on Wednesday!

 

Oh my crap (By the way, that is not an approved words in the MTC by some of the branch presidents wives. Yes, I had to learn that the hard way...haha) I only have a week and a half left! How in the world did time go so fast??! So today is our P-day now and I only have ONE MORE P-DAY! We got our travel plans today and I leave May 9th and like 8:00 something in the morning! I'm kind of nervous now because it's actually going to happen! Geez!

 

So here's something I never thought I'd miss: commercials! On Sunday we had a speaker in our devotional and he's a TV progammer or something for the church and he's involved in the LDS commercials. For part of his talk he showed us a bunch of the commercials they've produced over the years and I thought, "Oh my heck, I never thought I'd be so happy to see commercials!" Hahaha, it's funny the simple things you miss being in the MTC :)

 

For Easter the MTC doesn't do anything particularly fun, so we as companionships in our room decided to do something! We got a easter egg kit and we dyed our own eggs! I'm sending pictures of them and you're going to laugh because they are so SWEET! Haha I love them, but we had to throw them away unfortunately... haha it was fun though. We all sat on the floor while dying our cute little eggs!

 

Here's another thing you would never thing you'd miss: a measuring tape. The other day we really, really wanted to measure our classroom because the Elders kept saying it had to be the same size as our room that we slept in. We didn't have a tape measurer and we had no idea where to get one, so we created our own measuring tool, "Robert's" Our classroom size is like 4 1/2 by 2 and a head Robert's. I laid on the floor and we measured our room! Hahaha it was so funny. Some other Elders came in and were like, "What the crap are you guys doing??" Haha, it was great! It's dumb little things like that that make the MTC fun :)

 

On Wednesday we taught TRC in Spanish, but this time is was lesson 2! We  were super nervous because usually we have TRC on Saturdays, but our schedules are TOTALLY different so we really only had one day, (more like 2 hours) to study the Spanish words and grammar that we would need for teaching lesson 2. Anyways, we were nervous but it actually went really well. When I just focus on paying attention to the investigator and my companion the Spanish comes fairly easy, but if I sit there and think about what I'm going to say next them first off, I have no idea what the other two people said and secondly the Spanish just doesn't come out right. It's amazing how much focusing on what the investigator is saying can affect your lessons, even in English. When I'm teaching someone and I'm always thinking about the things I want to say next, I'm not listening to the Spirit so the things I say aren't inspired and they're not as effective. But if I listen 100% to the investigator, to my companion and to the Spirit then that's when we have the best lessons! The Spirit literally just puts thoughts and questions in your head and it's so cool when that happens because it's totally what the investigator needs to hear.

 

Guess who came to our Devotional on Tuesday night this week! Elder Dallin H. Oaks! Two Elder's from the Quorum of the 12 coming right in a row is apparently very rare, so I'm happy it happened while I was here! And that night our zone had to usher so we got prime seats for his talk. Here are some of my favorite things he talked about:

 

He said that we are called to affirm and demonstrate by example the need to endure to the end. I really liked this because it's so true that the best way to teach is by example. There was this lady who spoke once here and she said that one day she took some non-members to a McDonalds for lunch and she saw two missionaries in there and she thought "oh good, I can introduce them to my friends!" Then she saw that they were throwing french fries at each other and just messing around and she ended up not even metioning that they were missionaries because it was so embarrassing. Then she told of another story of missionaries she saw in a different McDonalds and they saw this single mom there and she had a few kids and was having a hard time getting all the trays and keeping track of her kids and just looked super stressed so they asked her if they could help. She asked them why they were so nice and willing to help and they got to talking and, I bet you can guess what happened... she got baptized! It just really reiterated that we always need to be a good example, even if we don't think anyone is watching us. Someone always is!

 

He also said that we didn't come on missions to receive praise and thanks. Many times we won't receive thanks when we deserve it, but that doesn't matter because that's not what we're here for! We're hear to help others come unto Christ and we shouldn't expect to receive any blessing or any praise for it!

 

The best way to help others is to love them. I've noticed that even in our "fake" teaching, that the investigators who we've developed a relationship with are way more likely to keep their commitments like reading the Book of Mormon every day or praying every day. I can't quite explain it, but if they know that you love them and if they can feel the love of Christ through you, they are way more likely to keep their commitments. They're way more likely to change if that feel that love, and that is what we want as missionaries: to help them change. So we have to love our investigators!

 

I'm pretty sure I say this in every email, but I LOVE the Elders in our Zone! We got a new group of 10 two weeks ago and of them is my new buddy. His name is Elder Crane and he likes to give me presents. These present are a little unusual though. The first one was a little tiny snail shell he found outside and it "took me two hours to find!" I accidentaly lost it the same day. So, two days later he tells me I have a present in on my desk, so I go in there and there's a LIVE snail sitting on a paper towel on my desk! Hahaha I laughed so hard! The Elders are always making me laugh, I'm so glad we have such good guys in our Zone :)

 

As I've mentioned a few times, our schedule is TOTALLY different now! We used to have like 4 hours of MDT (missionary directed time where you could either study, teach, do workshops, etc.) but now we have everthing scheduled in for us. We have it scheduled in when we do personal study, companion study, and language study. Which I actually kind of like because then I know that I'll get all three hours of studying in every day! But, that's why our P-day changed and that's why I didn't write yesterday! Everything is different and everyone is complaining about it. I think it's funny they complain about it because they act like the MTC Presidency just decided of their own free will to change things and didn't even consult Heavenly Father on it. I'm sure the First Presidency was super involved in it too, so I'm not too worried about it because I know it's what's best for us! Plus, I only have like 11 more days here!!

 

It's funny because when I first came to the MTC I was super nervous about it and didn't knwo what to expect! Now, I've been here for a while and I know what to expect and I really like it. It's not scary and I'm comfortable with it. But now, that's all changing and I'm nervous again and I don't have ANY idea what to expect! But I know I'll be fine, I probably won't understand the people I'm teaching for like the first 6 months, but I'll make it through somehow :) I'm interested to see how much I actually understand when people are speaking at a normal speed, I have a feeling I'll be a little lost for the first while!! But, I'll learn eventually!!

 

Well, I must go eat dinner now... I will write you all next week and then I'll only have like 4 days left! Yikes! I'm SUUUUUUUPER excited to get out into the field so I am able to listen to music! Who thought I would be so excited to listen to church music?? :)

 

I love you all, thanks for praying for me and supporting me!

Yet, Another One

Hola everybody!

 

So I have some exciting/crazy news: I will only be in the MTC for another 2 weeks and 3 days!! Crazy huh! Has it gone as fast for you as it has for me? Probably not... haha :) I'm excited to leave, but I will be super sad to go at the same time! I'll be sad/scared I should say, I feel like I don't know ANY Spanish, even though I know I do and I should be grateful I've been able to pick it up as well as I have because I know some people who struggle way hard with it. Someone said something way cool though about that, it was an Elder in one of our old districts. He said that once he stopped trying to learn Spanish for himself and started learning it for the people he would be teaching he was able to learn it much quicker. And I've realized that when I pray before doing language study if I pray and ask for help remembering that I'm learning it for the people of Colorado and if I pray for help in learning it, I remember a ton more of what I learn than if I don't pray... It's super cool!

 

I also just have some exciting news: Elder Scott came and spoke to us in our devotional last night and it was super good! It's the first time a member of the 12 has spoken here in like 3 or 4 months, so I was glad we were able to be here for it! When he walked into the room I felt the Spirit way strong, I had never had that happen to me before just by having someone walk in the room so it was super cool.This was his testimony: "I don't believe that Christ has a resurrected body - I KNOW He does.  I know that He atoned for our sins and that He LIVES." It was a super short testimony but it was really powerful. He also invoked upon us the Gift of Tongues, and said that it doesn't mean we don't have to study, but that if we sincerely try and have a desire than the studying will be much easier.

 

Elder Scott also said something really cool, "Don't judge yourself by what you think your potential is." I realized that we really shouldn't do that because with God we can do anything, but if we limit ourselves by not believing in ourselves we'll never reach our full potential, and we'll never reach our full potential without God. I have no idea if that makes sense, it does in my head at least... :) He also said, "Don't judge your capabilites by your past." Just because you couldn't do something in the past doesn't mean you won't be able to do it in the future. I really, really like that!

 

So we taught the first lesson (The Restoration of the Gospel) in Spanish for the first time on Saturday! It  actually went way better than I thought it would. I know that all my grammar and conjugating isn't correct, but I get across the message I want to. I always try to remebmer that because even our Colombian teacher who's been speaking English for 7 years still doesn't use correct grammar a lot, but we always (well, mostly) know what she's trying to say, so I can't get too caught up on the grammar stuff. I think what's going to be the hardest for me will be to not worry so much about remembering how to say certain words in Spanish, but just sitting back and listening to the Spirit and knowing that Heavenly Father will give me the Spanish words that I need to say, even if I don't recall at the time what they mean, I just need to say them because they're coming from the Spirit.

 

Cool conversion story of the week:

This girl got up in Relief Society and told us her conversion story. She used to live in DC and she was a devote catholic, her motto was "I was reared catholic, I am catholic and I'll die catholic." Well, along came the missionaries :) She said one day she was walking to karate class in a not so good part of DC and she saw these two little white boys (She's black so when she tells this story it's that much funnier because anything they say is funny :)) walking down this alley with big smiles on their face and she thought, "are they lost??" So she went up to them and asked them if they were lost. They said they weren't, but they had a message they would love to share with her if she had time. She said she didn't at that time, and she didn't want to invite them to her house because she didn't knwo them so she invited them to coffee (yeah, she was embarressed when they taught her about the Word of Wisdom... haha).

 

She said the first lesson in Starbucks lasted for 2 and a half hours! She kept asking question after question, not because she was interested in joining the church, but because she really was just interested in the beliefs of the religion. She said after the lesson she thought LDS people were pretty weird, but she agreed to let them teach her again. She gave them her number and went on with life. They kept calling her but she decided she really didn't want to hear anymore so she actually changed her cell phone number so they couldn't call her anymore!

 

Sometime later, I think at least 6 month, she was walking down the same alley and saw two more missionaries and she said she had no idea why, but something just pushed her to run up to them and asked them if they could come teach her. They said yes and the next day they went over to her house and taught her a couple lessons. The next time they went over she made them dinner and while they were eating they asked her if she'd be baptized. She said, "I'll tell you what, let's keep eating and we'll talk about this later." So they kept eating and she kept thinking about her Grandma who had passed away a year ago. Her and her grandma made pineapple empanadas the last time she ever saw her grandma and ever since then she gets these funny little signs through pineapples and she believes its her Grandma helping her throughout life (she hadn't told the missionaries this). So a little while later while they were still eating, she asked the missionaries, "What's the firs fruit you think of?" And they both looked up at her and said, "Pineapples." and she said the missionaries both looked at each other and she was all, "Being the 19 year old boys they were they both looked at each other and thought 'that is so cool we both thought of the same fruit!'" Hahaha, but then she said I knew that wasn't a coincidence, I know that was my Grandmother giving me a sign. So I said "Ok, I'll be baptized." She said the missionaries were really confused as to what fruit had anything to do with a decision to be baptized! Haha :)

 

I love hearing people conversion's stories though because they're all something super cool like that, something that just hit them like, "Oh my heck, this is the true church!" they do those every week in Relief Society and I LOVE it! I wish they would do just a whole hour of people doing that, I always feel the Spirit so strong when they're telling their stories.

 

Well, 4-square is officially my new favorite sport!!! I am known as Black Pearl in 4-square. Yeah, it's pretty legit. Hahaha :) It's so addicting. As my 4-square buddy Elder Quirante would say, "4-square isn't a sport, it's a way of life." Hahaha I love that kid, he left on Monday and I'm so sad! It stink having missionaries leave!!

 

Our purpose as missionaries is to invite other to come unto Christ. That doesn't mean just our investigators, but it means other missionaries, our teachers, our families so this I invite all of you to give thanks to God for something new EVERY DAY. Even if it's for the birds that you heard singing, or the fact that you can hear birds, if it's the fact that the sun was out that day, anything! Just give thanks.

 

Well, I must go eat lunch and then go to the temple! I will write next week and look forward to your letters :)

I love you guys!

-Hermana Roberts.

Hola!

Hola!

 

So this week, and every week for that matter, has gone by super fast! Before we know it we're going to be leaving! I think I really will be sad when I actually leave and go to Denver, I really do love it here. I love my teachers, all the Elders and Sisters and everything else about this place!

 

So my Colombian teacher learned English because she went on her mission to the Temple Square mission, and she actually speaks really, really good English, but sometimes she totally says the wrong word or pronounces things wrong and it turns out to be hilarious. Two weeks ago we were learning about conjugating. So she kept saying, "you just have to practice congregating." And we'd say, "Hermana, it's 'conjugating'" and she'd say, "oh, ok. Conjugating." Then literally 30 seconds later she'd say congregate again. So everyone was laughing and saying we know how to congregate really well, we do it everytime we all go out in the halls, what we really need help with is conjugating! So now she says (very slowly or she messes it up) "Whenever you congregate, conjugate!" Haha she's so funny :)

 

We had a Sister in our zone who had a birthday on Saturday so Hermana Sandavol says, "Hermana Severinsen, do you want me to bring you some x for your birthday??" and we all look at each other and her really weird and she's like "what?" And I was like, "what is x??" And this other sister is all, " I don't know, but it's a common name for ecstacy!" So we all bust up laughing and Hermana Sandoval has no idea what's going on so we explain what it is and she started laughing way hard and she's all, "No, I meant to say EGGS!" Then, we were still confused because why would you want eggs for your birthday?? Turns out in Colombia it's tradition that when you go to school on your birthday they all throw raw eggs on the head of the peron who's birthday it is... I have no idea why, but it made for a good laugh in class :)

 

Hermana Johansen and I did this TE thing to better understand how to teach the second lesson and we did it with this teacher named Brother Ang. I asked him where he served his mission and he said the NY north mission and I asked him if he happened to know Jon Miller and he's like, "yeah, I love that kid!! He's the best missionary!" So I told him he was my cousin and he was like, "that is so cool! He was one of my favorite Elders!" I usually don't ask people if they know people who I know served in their area because they never do, so I thought it was funny the one time I asked he actually did know him!

 

Cool story of the week: Actually, it's kind of cool and sad, but I thought it was awesome.

Last weekend Hermana Johansen and I were sitting outside of a classroom with Hermana Royle and we were waiting for Hermana Severinsen to get out of a meeting and these two other Sisters came up and sat across from us so Hermana Royle and I started talking to them. We asked them where they were from and the one, her name was Hermana Panoveistongo or something like that, and she said she was from Hawaii and she's tongan, so I asked her if she came to the MTC there or if she had lived somewhere else before. She said she lived in Oregon for three years and was going to school there and she said something about her being baptized there. So I said, "Oh, are you a convert?" She said, "Yeah, I got baptized three years ago!" so we talked about that for a little bit and then I asked her if any of her family had joined the church and she got this super serious look on her face and was like, "No, in the Tongan culture you do not change your religion. Ever. I flew home from Oregon to tell my family that I was getting baptized into this church and I was beat, literally beat, because I was changing religions. My family was really upset with me, but they just don't understand it at all." We kept talking about it for a little while and she said that she has written her family every week for the last 9 weeks and hasn't heard back from them once. They're that upset with her about it.

 

We were talking more and she said that her Grandpa had died last week and in Tongan culture there's very specific things that the oldest grandchild (she's the oldest) does at the funeral and it's very disrespectful if you aren't there to do it. So her mom actually called the MTC to talk to her and told her that her Grandpa died and her mom was totally expecting her to come home because she was supposed to the things the oldest grandchild was supposed to do. She told her mom that she wasn't coming home because she knew she'd never come back if she went home and she said her mom was furious with her and the rest of her family is super ticked at her too. But she said she hopes eventually they'll realize that maybe there is something super important about the work she's doing here since she wouldn't give that up to be with her family and go to her Grandpa's funeral.

 

I just thought it was insane that she was physically beaten and that her family won't even email her or write her letters because they're so upset, but she said, "Even though all that's happening, I'm still way happier than I was before I was a member of this church." I think it's amazing when people have such hard things to go through to become a member of the church and yet they still go through with it. I think it helps them appreciate it even more actually.

 

Today we are getting 10 new Elders in one district! That's huge and the classrooms here are tiny. We have 6 people in our district and we all barely comfortably fit into our classroom. I love getting new Elders, it's always so fun to meet them all :) I hope we get some new Sisters before we leave!! We'll probably get some the last week or two before we leave, which isn't very long to have with them, but we may not even get any at all!

 

I wasn't very prepared with writing down things during the week that I wanted to talk about in my email, so that's why this is so short... Haha, next week I'll be better! It's hard to remember throughout the week because we have so much to do and so little time to do it! I've printed off a bunch of conference talks that I want to re-read and every day I'm like, "I'm going to read this during personal study!" But then something comes up and I never get to do it! Seriously, the last week that's what happens everyday!

 

Spanish is coming along well. I REALLY wish I knew English grammar better because that seriously would make Spanish grammar much easier! They're like today we're going to talk about preterit regulars and irregulars. And I think, "I have no idea what preterit means, and how can words be regular or irregular? They're just words..." But luckily Hermana Johansen is freakishly good at grammar AND Spanish so she helps me out a ton, even though she gets frustrated with me sometimes :) I figure I'm just helping her learn how to be more patient... haha :)

 

One of the Elders in our zone said something really cool last week, he said that once he started learning Spanish for his investigators and not for himself, than that's when he was able to learn and understand Spanish a lot more. And I notice that, when I pray before language study and ask Heavenly Father to help me stay focused on the fact that I'm doing this for investigators I learn a lot more during my study!

 

Funny story, but it has to be super quick because I don't have much time! We pray A TON in the MTC, like  you have no idea how much. And we switch off between companions whose turn it is. The other day Hna J. said whose turn? I said, "I don't know, we haven't prayed FOREVER... like hours!" Hahaha it was hilarious!

 

Oh my crap, I have to go!

I love you all!