¡Encarnaciooooon!

HOLA MI FAMILIA!!!

 

I love you all and miss you all!! But the CCM is AWESOME. Let me tell you allllll about it.

 

First of, mi compañera is AWESOME. Hermana Baker is from Vegas, and we get along perfectly. We have so much fun with our roommates. (Hermana Abernathy from Tennessee, who knows my RS president at BYU, A. Hymas!! And Hermana Hill from North Carolina). We laugh all the time. Hna. Abernathy and I are ALWAYS quoting Nacho Libre. Anyway, Hna. Baker looks like Kelly McLean and Whitney Versey, and she has the personality of Shelby Marsden and Madi Mitchell. She is the BEST.

 

The CCM is a great place. We have been pretty good about being obedient, which seems to be the center of everything here. Obedience is key!! Obey and you WILL receive blessings. Our district is full of 12 Elders and 4 Hermanas. All the guys are straight out of high school. Elder Whipple in my district is from Snowflake, AZ and he knows Chris Binnie! Ah! :) Anyway, we are going going going nonstop from 6 am (we get up earlier because its 4 of us sharing a bathroom) to 10:30 pm. Its been hard some days, especially when Hna. Baker and I get burnt out from learning the language. On our second day of class we had to teach our first investigator, Ulises, who only speaks Spanish, so that was stressful. We didnt feel the Spirit very strong, so it was a train wreck. We were just brain dead. We sat outside for a while thinking, said a prayer and refreshed for the rest of the day. All of my days seem to be hard at one point, but whats nice is that we always end it wonderfully. I am ALWAYS happy at the end of the day. Maybe its because I finally get to go to bed. JK. But really...

 

Yesterday (Monday) we taught Ulises again. We had planned to teach him about the Plan of Salvation, but we never got to it. We were nervous, so we said a prayer before, and BOOM, there was the Spirit! The Spirit TOTALLY took over the lesson, and what a difference it makes. I now know first hand what everyone is saying when they say the Spirit needs to teach the lesson, not us. We are so imperfect. Really, we cant do anything without the Lords help. It still baffles me how wonderful our Heavenly Father is. We told him God loves him, and even though people arent perfect, the Gospel is. He wants us to see him again tomorrow!

 

Okay, the language..... SPANISH IS HARD. Seriously. Like, I am SO grateful for the English language. I cannot tell you how many times I (and even Hna. Baker) and I have said this week that we wish we were speaking English on our missions. That comes and goes, and although it would be much easier to get our message out in English, the Lord speaks to everyone, no matter what language they speak, and He needs people to get His message out. I need to remind myself of that every day. It hasnt been easy. I havent cried yet (hallelujah! Oh wait, I did when I bore my testimony to my district the other day), but there have been times where I have wanted to. Learning a language is tough stuff, especially when you want to share the most important message there ever was in the history of EVER. Its frustrating because you know what you want to say, but you just cant. Thats when the Spirit takes over. Oh it is wonderful!

 

Church was good on Sunday! We have to prepare talks each week, and speakers are randomly selected on Sunday. YIKES. I got lucky the first Sunday. Sundays here are awesome. We got to listen to a recorded devotional from Elder Holland that got me pumped up again. Then we watched Legacy later that night.

 

Let me tell you a little about my life here. This past week, the people in Mexico City have been having a celebration where they set off fireworks every night. But they arent fireworks like we know them. They sound like bombs, and there are no pretty colors or smoke or anything. Just loud explosions. And they GO OFF ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT. Seriously. ALL NIGHT. And dogs bark allllll nighhhhtttt. Woof.

 

The food is good! Not spicy like I thought itd be. They have Frosted Flakes and fruit, so Im happy. :) We were given this filtered water bottles the first day. Theyre really weird. Um, in our casa (house) there are...16 girls? 4 in each room, 1 bathroom in each room. So thats fun. A lot of the girls are native speakers here for 2 weeks, and they are super sweet and patient with our horrid Spanish skills. LOL. YOu should hear me. I feel so white.

 

There is like ZERO time to write in my journal. It bums me out so hard. But I try! I get like 10 minutes every night. You know me. You know how crazy I must be going over this.

 

What else... my teacher is a native speaker as well. He is SO funny. He thinks its hilarious how us Americans pronounce the word churro. He lays it out all American-y. SO SO funny. Were constantly saying churrrroooo. haha. The elders get mad every day when he doesnt bring us back Churros.

 

One of the elders in my district tells this stupid joke about this guy in a bar who has a huge orange head, and a guy asks him about it. so he explains that he met a genie who gave him three wishes. 1. that he had all the money and cars and nice things he could ever want. 2. that the most beautiful woman would marry him. and 3, he says "I bet youre wondering what my third wish was. It was for a big orange head." SO DUMB. You should've seen him (Elder F.) tell it to Hno. Hernandez, our teacher, in Spanish. His face was SO Funny. Oh man.

 

My branch president, Pres. Machado, is so nice! He is taking care of us so well!

 

Shout out to Mr. Mitchell for teaching me Spanish. I dont remember a lot of it, but I am recalling some of it!!

 

Things I forgot: my hairbrush, my hair supplies (ties and bobby pins). Of course. Luckily we have a store here on campus. I got a brush at least.

 

Some elder told me I had a dope shirt the other day. It was that green one with the pearls on the collar. Oi.

 

Anyway, life is good! The days are long and hard, but at the end of the day, its perfect. I wouldnt want to be anywhere else. My companion and roommates and I laugh and talk ALL the time. They are fabulous hermanas. I love them to death already. Hna. Abernthy and Baker both go to BYU. :)

 

I MISS YOU GUYS! I miss Duffy too! I was showing my roommates pictures of all of you and my animals. I hope Sarah is still enjoying her new job! And Bradon, you better shoot me a deer or else. I miss Bradon. :( How is Dad? And gma? LOL. Just tell me everything!! I want to know about everything! Im glad the primary kids are doing well!! I love them and miss them!

 

You can tell the primary kids an the primary presidency that the mission is the best thing anyone can do. It is hard, but you never feel closer to your heavenly father than you do on the mission. He loves you and wants you all to be missionaries someday, whether you serve a mission or not. THe gospel is for everyone! Read the Book of Mormon and develop your testimony and you will be great!

 

I will attach a couple pictures to this email. We went to the Mexico City temple today. It was fabulous!! Beautiful place! I love the Lord!

 

I love you guys too! I hope everything and everyone is okay! I know the Lord is watching out for yall. He loves you!! And he wants you to be happy. Share the Gospel and dont be afraid! The Spirit does the talking! :) Be the Lords mouthpiece!

 

Okay, I have to go now! But I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU ALL! Send me emails!! And tell Bradon to email me already!!!!! Nobody gets my Zoolander quotes here. Except Elder Whipple. He loves Hotrod too. He has the perfect name. All the native speakers pronounce it "Elder Hwheeeeple". Lol. I love the accent!

 

Alrighty! Until next Tuesday!! LOTS OF LOVE!!

 

Hermana Porter