The first couple of days at the MTC where the craziest days of my life. When we first got here, they ushered us into a huge chapel where we sang Bringing the World His Truth. They changed the lyric from "we will be the Lords missionaries" to "we are now the Lords missionaries" It was so cool! My companion's name is Hermana Hererra, she's from Lindon. She is my person. Her dad is from Spain, and she took 5 years of Spanish but we still don't know a lot of Spanish. She's so open about everything- it's hilarious. Her basically fiancee's last name is Shumway. We were meant to be companions. She got 4 packages on the first day, and pretty much 1 each day since. We have so much food, it's ridiculous.
We live in West Campus, where everyone speaks Spanish, and is composed of Raintree (classes) and Y-view (residences). I sleep on the top bunk, Nicole was right, it does suck. Everyone is ridiculously friendly. Everywhere you go it's "HOLA HERMANAS!!! COMO ESTA!?" Anyone you are walking past turns into a ten minute conversation. People just walk up to you and bear testimony in Spanish. Main campus is not the same. Everytime we go up there, people pretend they don't know what hello means.
Everyone in my district (12 of us, 6 sisters and 6 elders) are AMAZING. It has only been a week but we are all SO close. They are like family to me. All the Elders are like my little brothers. Or dog. The y actually really remind me of Loki, they are all so cute and little and excited, but they can get annoying at times! They are so fun though. We joke and pull pranks all the time. We have all these mini clothes pins that we try to stick on each other when we aren't paying attention. Elder Cristiansen has gotten it on my name tag twice! I guess I just really focus when I'm talking to people! We have class (with our district) from 7:45 in the morning untill 9:15 at night (there is a 3 hour break for gym and lunch, and 1 hour for dinner), so we spend a lot of time there. Each classroom is an apartment in Raintree, so it's a full apartment. There are a couple rooms in each class, so during companion study, Me and H. Herrera were in one. We heard a knock at the door, and when when we went to answer it- they elders had barricaded us in with desks!
All of the Hermanas in the district are in the same apartment. 6 girls and 1 bathroom es no bueno. Hermana Murphey is from Portland, Oregon. She is my person. She is literally Jill Downer. She can quote anything. Disney movies, classics, tween flicks, rom-coms yo u name it. She knows all these random dances from things, and is always a good time. She taught us this thing called 'sasquatching' where you walk behind people taking a photograph in the manner of sasquatch (from that classic photo) and then we they look at their picture later, there is just some random sasquatch looking thing in the back.
On Friday (we had basically only been there a day) we had to teach our first (paid actor) investigator, entirely in Spanish. It was so hard! We didn't know any of the language! We copied phrases from the mission book, and said those to him. That was fine, but when he would ask questions we literally had no idea how to answer them! We had top teach him each day after that as well, ending on Tuesday. The lessons slowly got better. On Monday we decided to to not read prepared statements from a paper, and just speak with our hearts. The spirit was so strong as I bore my testimony in broken spanish. While I didn't make perfect sense, the spirit is the universal language, and it was clear that the investigator understood. He accepted (fake of course) our invitation to be baptized. We kinda messed up the rest of the district though, because me and H. Hererra were the first to ask, and everyone else felt pressured to do it too. He said no to them. Haha. (eventually most of them got a yes) On Wednesday we had our last lesson with the investigator. While one of the hardest things of my life, it was such a cool, humbling expirience. We really do need God's help in our lives. I'm excited for him to critique our district tomorrow.
Sunday was a bit stressful. It was fast Sunday, we just do the service entirely in Spanish with the whole zone. The meeting doesn't end until everyone bears testimony. Being nearly 4 days old in the field- mine was fairly simple. "Yo se que Dios es nuestros Padre Celestial. Nosotros somos sus hijos." And then because I could think of the correct grammar for amor (to love) I said "me gusta Dios mucho. En el nombre do JesuCristo, Amen" what I thought meant 'I like God a lot. Amen' Everyone bust a gut laughing, including our branch president. The older elders in our zone told me later that the verb 'gustar' can't be used on people, unless it's in a romantic way! I'll never make that mistake again!
Time for a grandpa Dale - esce paragraph. Being in a new place, and eating new food, the Hermanas in my district have had a problem. Instead of our bowels being full of charity and mercy, they have been full of food from days before. We've really bonded the struggle. It's been great. (And don't worry Mom- I've pooped now.)
This had been one of the hardest, happiest weeks of my life. I was so tired the second day, I accidentally slept with my name tag on. Ha. I've learned so much, I can pray and testify in spanish. It's amazing how important prayer has become in my life. I say so many prayers a day it's crazy. It's SO cool to look around and see so many rightoues youth praying as well. At every meal I love to look at missionaries sit down and bow their heads. I then like to laugh when an Elder who had already sat down steals their food.
Estoy muy agredecida por mi familia, mucho amor,
Hermana Shumway
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