Semana 4 - Just do it in your free time!

Hola! Last pday after I wrote the letter, we went to the Mexico City Temple.  The temple was gorgeous!  We did a session and it was in Spanish but we listened through headphones and it was translated into English for us.  We had to talk in Spanish and that was muy dificil and I needed a lot of help.  It was amazing!  That night I also memorized the first vision.  It is so much harder for me to memorize stuff in espanol.  We have metas (goals) for our district to memorize Santiago (James) 1:5, the first vision, Moroni 10:4-5, missionary objective and the baptismal invitations.  It was a week full of memorizing!  We are still teaching Diana & Cristian, our investigators.  It’s nice that my Spanish is improving enough that I can hold conversations and talk about stuff on the fly.  I have to be creative though to avoid saying words I don’t know.  For example, when Cristian asked me why people don’t like Jose Smith and I can’t remember the verbs for attack, persecute, or fight.  Gotta work around!  We also try to practice our Spanish by sitting with Latinos at meals.  Most of them don’t speak any English, but they love American pop music!  It’s hilarious!

Sundays at the CCM are great but also the worst.  They pick a topic at the beginning of the week and everyone has to write a talk and be prepared to speak (en espanol).  After the sacrament they announce which 4 missionaries will be speaking.  The meetings are pretty small so it’s actually almost guaranteed you will be called upon to speak sometime while at the CCM.  Sometimes more than once it’s weirdly stressful.  My companera, Hermana Nelson, got picked to speak last Sunday.  We all laugh because they tell us to do a lot of things in our “free time.”  Like write your talk in your free time, or do this assignment in your free time.  The thing is we don’t have free time. Our entire day is structured from the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep.  So we all joke about doing stuff in our “free time.”  Like, I’m so tired but it is okay I’ll take a nap in my free time.  The structured time is good because it makes us more efficient.  We did service on Monday – folding sheets.  The nice thing about our service projects is that we get to wear jeans.  It’s hotter, but so much more normal feeling to wear jeans and converse.  I’m also getting a watch tan which is really weird and makes me feel like my mom.  We chatted with some Latinas and they were all laughing because they couldn’t pronounce my first name – first or last.  A lot of people here struggle to say Dangl.  We also met some Latinas during lunch who were on their first day but leave to Tuxtla the same day we do because we are 3 weeks in!  Technically semana 4. 

I feel like I’ve been away from home for a really long time.  The days are starting to get faster, they aren’t easier, but we’re stronger so it feels a lot better.  On Wednesday, we got to teach TRC.  I don’t know if I have explained it before, but basically members of the church from surrounding areas come and pose as investigators.  So we taught an old who talked really fast even though we said, “mas lento,” and was as recently returned missionary.  It was great. That night we showered a new district with random goodies from the tienda (CCM store) to celebrate them making it through a week.  Another district did that for us after our first week.  Kind of a pay it forward thing.  We didn’t have pday this week because today (Friday) we went to Immigration, which sadly took most of our pday.  I think I have to go back though because my companion signed her passport weird, she started putting her nickname when signing instead of her full name and messed it up.  So now she has to go to the US Consulate, to get a new signature, and if they don’t accept that, get a new passport and then go back to Immigration.  Basically it is a big mess!  Then on the bus ride back we talked with Latinos and taught them some English while they taught us some Spanish words. It was fun!  Also only 17 or 18 days left in the CCM! 

Spiritual Thought:
We watched a clip of Elder Holland’s talk “The Atonement and the Mission Field.”  I would recommend looking it up it is so good.  “Missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience.  Salvation was never easy!  Why would we think it would be easy for us when it was never ever easy for Him?” 

Con amor,

Hermana Dangl