Thursday, September 4, 2014

First Email - Week 1 - 9/4/14

Hola mi familia!
Its FINALLY P Day holy crap! I have never been so happy. And dont judge my typing. This is a spanish keyboard and I cant find the apostrophe haha. AND I dont have all that much time... Oh my goodness I dont even know where to start. I wanna tell you every single detail about my life here and everything that has happened, but... "aint nobody got time for that!" So.... I love it here. I really do. I have had some good days and bad days, but all in all ive been doing really well. Its so hard to be away from you guys and not have you to comfort me when I have a hard day, but its okay. Im learning! and I have amazing friends. My best friend here is Herman Townley and she is amazing! Seriously. I dont know what I would do without her. Elder Wherhaun is one of my best friends too. we have become super close and we bond over the fact that we are like the only ones in our district that have no prior knowledge of spanish like at all. haha. Learning spanish is seriously like thee hardest thing i have ever had to do. It has been a BIG trial but I know that I will be blessed if I have faith. An Hermana that has been here for five weeks now, Hermana Boehmer, was telling me how hard it was for her here at first too, and she shared with me an amazing talk, but I left it in my journal and I cant remember who its by, so I will have to tell you next week because its an awesome talk and it can apply to yall too! I do remember kind of the idea of what it said though... he talked about how at times it may seem that our trials focus on areas of our lives that we seem to have the hardest time coping with... but since growing as a person and becoming stronger is the whole point of trials, it shouldnt even be a surprise that trials tend to be extremely personal- pretty much directed right to our particular needs or weaknesses.
So through this, i have come to find some major weaknesses of mine. M e being a perfectionist has made me prideful, and it makes learning a language that much harder and that much more frustrating. I am grateful for this trial and I just pray everyday for the Lordd to bless me with thte strength to learn this language.
My Spanish pretty much sucks, but my spanglish though... yeah its muy bien! Its insane. From the very first day, our lessons have been in spanish. Nobody really speaks English here so its really hard! We have our lessons in spanish about the Gospel, so it makes it hard to understand how to teach and to understand basically everything. But its getting so much better! I cant really speak very well yet but I can at least understand most of our lessons now. And I have to keep reminding myself that Ive only been here a week. My perfectionism does not help though. I just want to speak it perfectly already! I can at least pray in spanish and I can bear my testimony in spanish though, so thats cool!
Oh and ya know how I am awful at reading watches<¿ yeah... i am pro now! Even in military time or whatever cause that is what they use here. So if nothing else, I can finally read the time lol. Sorry this email is so scattered and random but I have like no time with so much that I want to say!!
Mi compañera... ahh. Well I started out having a really hard time with her. Just like me, she has no background knowledge of Spanish. And she has the attitude that is will just come so I cant really get her to practice with me or study with it. I was so frustrated and was wishing that Hermana Townley was my companion, but then I prayed.. and immediately after, I got this overwhelming love for my companion and I realized how much of a blessing she is for me. I am learning a lot from her and she is the right companion for me in order to learn this language and the Gospel. We get along a lot better too! She braided my hair today really cool and everyone says that it is muy bonita haha. She is from Page, AZ so we bond over talking about Lake Powell. She really is awesome!
Oh yeah, funny story. So.. Ya know how my suitcases are like super bright pink? Umm ya everyone else had either black, brown, or navy bags. All dark. When the guy came to pick us up from the airport and was loading our bags into van, he looked and my bag, looked at me, then said something in spanish and started laughing so hard. Come to find out... He called me Barbie. So that was my nickname from everyone the first day. Luckily it didnt stick haha.
Oh and Micadyn, you would be proud. I got the Hermanas to start doing handstand contests with me during physical activity, so that aint stopping anytime soon! haha.
Ok and this is super random but I heard the best joke this week. Its totally my kind of joke. What do you call a white man in the ocean?... A SALTINE CRACKER hahaha.
Anyways, I really am so happy here. I miss you so much though! I miss going to the temple with you. I get to go every Thursday now while I am here at the CCM (Centro de capitación misiónal) and so Im stoked for later today when I get to go.
This is certainly not perfect grammar at all, but heres a short testimony from me en español...
yo se que Dios restauró su Evangelio a través de Jose Smith. Yo se que el Libro de Mormon es verdadero y contiene la plenitud del Evangelio. El Evangelio de Jesucristo es verdadero. Yo se que esto es verdad al sentir el Espíritu Santo y al recibir bendiciones. Le amo Dios. Y yo se que Él me ama. Estoy agradecido por el EVangelio. el amor de nuestro Padre Celestial, ya las escrituras. Yo so que puedo reicibir bendiciones a través la fe en Jesucristo. En el nombre de Jesuscristo, Amen.
I love you guys so so so so much! And miss you like crazy.

-Hermana Sanders

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