Wednesday, May 29, 2013

First Week:
The CCM is AMAZING! I am loving it here! The campus is super small and so we all know eachother - especially the norte-americanos. There are only about 30 of us here. I love talking to the latinos - they are such amazing people. The day after I got here, 80 latino elders showed up. There are also three latina hermanas who share a room with me and my compañeras. Love talking to them! 

After 5 days, Im proud to say I am practically fluent in spanglish. :) I am learning spanish way faster than I expected- The teaching method here seems to be one of "throw them in the pool and they'll figure out how to swim eventually." We learn out of necessity since english is so extremely rare. I absolutely love it.

 An elder in my district and he makes us laugh every day. For example, when we were talking about how we are trusted to live all the mission rules without supervision, someone told him "you are still under the BYU honor code!" and he responded, "we live by a higher law now - The honor code has been fulfilled." It made us all laugh.

Oh! another funny story - one of our hermanas was talking to a latino elder and tried to ask him his name (Cual es su nombre?) and instead asked for his number (Cual es su numero?). We laughed for a long while at that - not very reverent but we couldn't help it.

There are actually three Hermana Blacks here! In a place with only 15 sisters, it gets pretty confusing (For example, in sacrament meeting they called on Hermana Black to speak and I almost had a heart attack until they said it was another Hermana Black).

My teacher gave us some great advice for when we feel overwhelmed by the task ahead. He compared the difficulty of learning a new language in 6 weeks to Nephi's task of building a ship. It seems almost impossible, but if we just take it a day at a time, a piece at a time, and follow the directions of the Lord, we can do anything - even build a ship! He also asked us, "your head thinks its dificíl (difficult), but what does your heart feel?" We all said good. It is so true. No matter how hard it gets, I still am so happy here and it feels so good.

I am continually amazed by the blessings being poured out on us - I am learning so much I don't think I could ever keep it all in my head. I also think I understand now why missionaries come back so "wierd". My branch president explained how we like to be well rounded in life, but on a mission, you get a little lopsided. But it's OK to be lopsided! We are lopsided in the spirit. It's all good.

Oh! I almost forgot about the Fruit Loop Juice - for every meal they have two different kinds of juices and every single time they have been different! So it’s like an adventure in tasting them (because we have no idea what the signs say). I am officially designated the juice taster since my compañeras have lost their courage after a few very bad tastes haha. But one of the first ones we tried here tasted exactly like fruit loops. Go figure.

I love you all! Don't forget to write! I am loving every second here even though I am tired all the time - in the best way. The good and full life way.

 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment