Semana 3

Hola to my beautiful family! This week at the CCM (which, for my lady MICHELLE, means centro capitación de misioneros, or AKA MTC) has been quite like every other week here, though things finally feel  like they are clicking! I´ve found that I love personal study time and get a lot of inspiration through that. We did a group "personal study" with our district in which we asked a lot of questions and then searched for the answers. There´s something about starting with a question that gets the spirt flowing. There has been some good stuff that has happened, too! Me and my companions have been teaching Raquel, and we´ve finally started to get the hang of teaching "people" not "lessons." We taught her about how the gospel can help her to become clean from her sins and change her life. I didn´t know if I would invite her to be baptized or not but all of a sudden the spirit was so strong that I asked (in perfect spanish :)) and she accepted! It was the best feeling I almost broke down and cried right in front of her. We left the lesson feeling so good, but almost feeling "now what?" haha we teach her again tomorrow, so it will be good to continue to see her progress. We also had the opportunity to teach some natives from here in Mexico in what's called TRC. We taught 3 young women about prayer and it was a great experience :) I felt so excited to actually get out in the field and start teaching real people!

 

The weather here continues to be surprisingly cold. Lots of rain. Last week I had left some clothes out to dry on the line and a huge rainstorm that night left them not so dry... haha It was a funny experience, even if I had to re-wash them all. It's funny some of the things you miss. For example, I went to the tienda the other day and they had a bag of laundry soap that smelt SO GOOD!!! I had to buy it just to put it in my closet to make my clothes smell good. It reminded me of the smell of our house. The other soap here is just kind of blah (a little like the food.... haha) I love being here in Mexico though. The culture here is so different. Last Saturday they were having a HUGE street concert just outside our boundaries that kept us up all night! It was fun at first though because we haven't heard actual music for a while. My district was outside playing a game for language study and we couldn't help but dance around to the Spanish style music.

 

Typical day here at the CCM. Wake up at 6:30, try to talk in spanish but end up just not talking, breakfast at 7:15am, Personal Study for an hour, then depending on the day we´ll teach a progressing investigator, then we´ll do Language Study as a class which usually just ends with the district having their brains fried and being unable to focus... haha, then it's coaching where our teacher helps us with specific things we need as a companionship (if you didn´t catch that, it´s a 5 hour block where we´re in a classroom.... kind of rough!) After lunch (finally...), we do TALL which means technology assisted language learning where we can record our voices and play it back and then listen to native spanish speakers say the same thing. It´s helped a ton with pronunciation! After that we have a 1/2 hour of additional study and then more language study.... Which usually means me and my companions go outside to sit on the grass and do some grammar work and then read the Book of Mormon out loud in Spanish. Then we have a glorious 50 minutes of gym time!!! It helps to run or cycle after sitting for so long. After that we have Dinner, another progressing investigator (or TRC), a lesson from our night teacher and more coaching.... Then back to the casa for shower, journal and then bed at 10:30!!! Quite the day no? But it´s nice to stay busy. It keeps my mind off of missing my loved ones back at home too much! Though that part is still hard.

 

Me and Hermana Barney are still on our parasite pills. We should be done taking them within the  next few days. I haven't felt too sick, just a few waves. I've dropped 5 pounds in the last week which  isn't that much, but considering the way they feed us I was surprised! Hopefully once we´re done with the pills we´ll be back on track :) Hermana Barney has also had a pretty bad cold on top of it, but the elders in our district were able to give her a blessing. It was awesome! It was the first time some of them had ever given a blessing, yet they did it all in Spanish! And, they even said some things that didn't relate to her sickness that had been weighing on her mind. It's amazing how the spirit works.

 

Some crazy news that I just received in an email.... I will now be serving as the mission nurse for BOTH the san pedro sula east AND the san pedro sula west missions...... WHAT????! Crazy.... crazy.... crazy..... I'll try not to get overwhelmed, but that's almost 500 missionaries combined (if not more). I'm definitely going to be needing some help from the other side! It'll be nice to actually get out in the field and see how it will work. I haven't even had much chance to think about the nursing side of things, except for on the few occasions I go on splits with Hermana Berrett and her companion Hermana Lyman and go talk to the doctor about different medical stuff. I'm ready to get out there!

 

Well family, I love you all. I hope you´re doing well. I miss you, love you and pray for you every day! Until next week!

 

Hermana Angilyn Bennett

Angilyn's District - Mexico Temple - Pday