Me and Dixon are still getting along so great. Everyone in our zone says its crazy that we got put as companions, because apparently we're like the same person. So we always do this thing where we'll look at each other and say stuff at the same time and everyone always dies. Also we made a long handshake one day during exercise time haha. So this guy in our zone drew a picture of us as a 2 headed person, i'll send a pic of it.
My other two roommates are hermana grove (going to Bolivia) and hermana Lemke (Arizona)... we get along great! We seriously have zero issues.
One thing I've noticed is that i haven't missed my phone at all.. Which is surprising to me. I thought i was going to be slightly handicapped without it. But honestly, the only time i missed having my phone was 1) so i could google translate instead of using a Spanish dictionary 2) look up conference talks. This week i memorized the first vision in Spanish and Moroni 10:4-5 in Spanish. There is soooo much memorizing here.
This week I felt so much more positive. I prayed a ton the first three days that i would feel good here, and then we had Easter Sunday, and i think ever since that day, I've been fine!
DALLIN H OAKS came to speak! I really liked his talk. And then that night we had a devotional by Sheri Dew! She talked about how we all have divine orbits. And there are some people who were meant to come into our life orbits. People we needed to meet, and people we were meant to teach or impact. After that I made a list in my journal of people who i think were in my divine orbit.. it was cool to see how many people have influenced me and people that i have been an influence to. She also said that she thinks we can call upon angels for help. Like if we're struggling, we can pray and ask for angels to aid us through our trials, or in our missionary discussions. So i thought that was neat.
Then after that devotional we watched this talk by Bednar called "The characters of Christ".. and i could go on about that talk forever. But the main idea is that to be like Christ we need to turn outward when the natural tendency is to turn in and focus on ourselves. He said that we aren't going to find our testiimony on our missions if that's our goal. But we find our testimonies getting stronger when we aren't looking for it, but instead losing ourselves in the service of others. That talk changed perspective for me and Dixon both!
The rest of the week, we taught our investigator (Catalina) every single day. It was so stressful to prepare a half hour lesson every day when you dont know Spanish haha. But we're able to get our point across in the lessons,
and its only 10 days in.. so i think we're going to be okay. Then yesterday, Catalina came in our classroom and let us know that she's actually going to be our teacher now! Then we all picked a scripture that explains why we're here.. everyone shared theirs and bore their testimony. It was so spiritual! Which was something i needed, cuz usually everything is just so focused on the language. I chose Mosiah 2: 20-21. Then i explained how God has literally done everything for us. He supports us "from one moment to another", and lends us breath each day. Even if we were to serve him from the day we were born until the day we die, we would still be indebted to him. And so i said i just wanted to dedicate a small portion of my life to give thanks.
This past week me and Dixon have been running 3 miles with one of the other Hermanas in our zone during exercise time. The food isn't very good... but it isn't very bad. Its just cafeteria food. Sometimes they'll have a really good meal.. and then sometimes its awful and all you can do is eat yogurt and fruit. But i can definitely see how people gain weight here.
Every night in my journal writing, i've started to write 2 ways i've seen gods hand in my life that day. Its been great, because somedays you come home and your brain is fried and you're exhausted, but you're still able to remember fun and good things that have happened that day.
We've been going to choir on Sundays and Tuesdays, and the other day we sang this song called "Hurrah for Israel", its from the movie called the other side of heaven. I loved it!! It was super powerful with all the missionaries singing it.
Juan A. Uceda from the 70, came to give a talk. He talked about how we aren't called to teach people, but we're called to make disciples. Then he talked about how we can become disciples and how we all need to repent daily. Which i definitely haven't been doing.. So i've been trying to repent in all my nightly prayers now.
On Easter, during choir practice, they do that thing where they have a camera and a jumbo-tron thing and show people singing from the choir. And it came on me and Dixon and we started laughing so hard for some reason.
then all the elders from our zone started laughing, and they got put on the camera next. Luckily it was just during practice, and not the real thing. But literally so many people throughout the week have been like "Hey you're that girl from choir!".. so yeah i'm now MTC famous as the choir joke. hahah
One thing i love about the MTC is that you're able to get so close with your zone. Everyone in my zone is so different, and they are people who i probably wouldn't have been friends with in high school. But here, everyone just gets close and has fun getting to know each other even though we're all different. And i loooooove that we dont have phones, because people talk to each other during meals. They have no other choice :) haha i seriously love it. I'm so sad because all the people im close with from my zone that have been here for longer than me are leaving on Monday :(
One thing that happened this week that made me feel a lot better about the language.. is that on Sunday i prayed in Spanish in relief society. And afterward, everyone was like "what the heck, you've only been here for 4 days?" and so the branch president and a couple of the older Hermanas came up to me after and told me that i shouldn't be worried about Spanish at all. So that was a huge comfort to me, because i think i've just been too hard on myself about Spanish.
Love you all!
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