Dear my wonderful friends and family!!
Wow, I love having five days in between p-days!! I feel like I just wrote and here I am again. I think I was just as excited to come down to the computers though! I LOVE email time!! Last week I barely got two letters out and didn’t have time to send any pictures, so I’m sending more this week and hopefully I'll have a little more time to write a few more people. We’ll see. I loovvedd seeing pictures of you guys and it's so fun to hear how life is going. I LOVE that picture of all of us at the airport! Mom, if you’re ever going to send a picture to me in a package, that's the one I want!
I feel like time at the CCM is going to start going by faster, and its crazy that I've already been here a third of the time. Exactly two weeks ago I was on a plane flying over to Columbia and oh how so much has changed for me! It's weird to think that life is actually going on like normal every where else in the world! But I’m actually really enjoying this little bubble I’m in. Food getting cooked for you, laundry done by a maid, no grocery shopping, and only having to worry about one specific thing all day everyday. My companion put it well... if you’re wondering what were doing here, we eat rice, feel the Spirit, and speak Spanish. So there you go. If you’re running out of time, no need to read my letter because there's my week in a preview. Haha.
Well, the week started out well with getting locked out of our room, not waking up to the alarm in the morning (and having about ten minutes to get ready for the day) I’m getting good at that :) And then, I knocked off my bottle of leave in conditioner and shattered I think over the whole entire floor of our room. (Yes, right when we had to get down to a devotional. Those things always happen at convenient times.) My companions were so sweet and helped me clean the whole thing up. They even got their own wash clothes and I’m pretty sure they will never be white anymore! But it was a good adventure and I think we finally aren’t stepping on glass pieces anymore.
 |
| We moved rooms today. I think I should get used to this whole packing thing! |
Speaking of my companions, I told you who they were, but mom asked a little bit more about them, and sorry I forgot that in my last email! Hermana Weaver is from Cedar City and went to SUU this year. She is so sweet has such a great way of bringing the Spirit into lessons. We actually met each other at the airport in Atlanta and have been friends ever since. Hermana Kendra Wise is from Gilbert, Arizona and went to BYU this last year. She lived in Heleman so we didn’t know each other, but we found out we have some of the same friends in common. Imagine that!! She reminds me a lot of (aunt) Amber and Elissa Clark (one of my college roommates). She has such a joy for life and always helps us laugh about all the things that are hard or go wrong. They are both runners, so they push me everyday at workout hour which is probably good for me :) Hermana Wise has Fit Bit (which counts steps, tracks miles) so were trying to get 10,000 in everyday, which is very hard at an MTC where you’re sitting all day. Like I said last week, our companionship is just going so well! I could see how threesomes could be hard, but luckily it's not a problem because we get along so well!
A little more about the CCM here... its an old church that is on maybe 3 or 4 acres. Not very big. Its fenced in, so we’re mostly in this same area all the time. I feel like I live in a house/church/cafeteria/college dorm room/stake presidents office. I LOVE this CCM though! There are about 70 missionaries (which is sooo small compared to the Provo) but because of that, we get to know everyone. Our districts are really tight, and the President knows everyone's name and things about us. It has been perfect for me!
Like I said, we’re pretty much stuck inside the gates, but last Friday we finally got to go out into the real world of Bogota, Columbia and go proselyting! Ya, you’re probably thinking the same thing that I am. We had barely been here for a week and they were sending us to the streets! With our companions and a Book of Mormon. Its weird, but I honestly wasn’t that nervous. I've had Latins laughing at me all week for my Spanish so it couldn’t be much worse than that :) The first girl we talked to was sitting by a tree I think doing some homework. She was in college and soo forgiving of the little Spanish we knew. As we talked to her, I could tell she was lonely and she told us her family wasn’t very close. As we gave her a Book of Mormon towards the end of our conversation, she told us that she really needed that and when she looked up at us, she had tears in her eyes. Wow. I was really touched, and I realized how many people there are in the world that don’t have the truth, and don’t even know that it exists. The last lady we talked to was such a sweet little grandma. She was Catholic and as we talked to her, I don’t know if she'll be interested, but she said that she felt good when she talked to us. She said we looked like barbies from the US. Hahaha. But it really made me realize what Christlike love is like. We were three girls who weren't very good at what we were trying to do, but this lady turned around from where she was headed and showed us so much love. We were out for about an hour and it was probably the highlight of my week. It made me realize how much I don’t know, but it also made me realize how much I DO know. We got four peoples' contact information to give to the missionaries here. Who knows what will come out of it, but SUPER cool experience!
Like I said, we’re pretty much stuck inside the gates, but last Friday we finally got to go out into the real world of Bogota, Columbia and go proselyting! Ya, you’re probably thinking the same thing that I am. We had barely been here for a week and they were sending us to the streets! With our companions and a Book of Mormon. Its weird, but I honestly wasn’t that nervous. I've had Latins laughing at me all week for my Spanish so it couldn’t be much worse than that :) The first girl we talked to was sitting by a tree I think doing some homework. She was in college and soo forgiving of the little Spanish we knew. As we talked to her, I could tell she was lonely and she told us her family wasn’t very close. As we gave her a Book of Mormon towards the end of our conversation, she told us that she really needed that and when she looked up at us, she had tears in her eyes. Wow. I was really touched, and I realized how many people there are in the world that don’t have the truth, and don’t even know that it exists. The last lady we talked to was such a sweet little grandma. She was Catholic and as we talked to her, I don’t know if she'll be interested, but she said that she felt good when she talked to us. She said we looked like barbies from the US. Hahaha. But it really made me realize what Christlike love is like. We were three girls who weren't very good at what we were trying to do, but this lady turned around from where she was headed and showed us so much love. We were out for about an hour and it was probably the highlight of my week. It made me realize how much I don’t know, but it also made me realize how much I DO know. We got four peoples' contact information to give to the missionaries here. Who knows what will come out of it, but SUPER cool experience!
A few "you know you’re in Colombia when"s....
-You know you’re in Columbia when you get sunburned from being outside for one hour
-You know you’re in Columbia when you’re riding on a bus and there is a motorcycle literally less than a foot away from you
-You know you’re in Columbia when they try and hide rice in the ice cream
Yes, I’m loving this country! And I know there may have been some dangerous things going on, but we are totally safe right here in our gated little CCM community.
I had a cool experience in class this week. We were reading the first few verses of first Nephi in the Book of Mormon... Trying to translate from Spanish to English. It talks about Nephi writing in the language of his fathers, and our teacher pointed out that learning a language is probably something we can add to the list of hard things that Nephi was asked to do. Missions.. can be hard. The mission schedule.. ya, that can get tiring, and learning a language has not been the easiest thing, but I know how Nephi responded to his problems. I think if it weren’t for the challenging things Nephi had to go through, he wouldn’t be as valiant, his faith wouldn’t have been as strong, and his stories definitely wouldn’t be there to help 19 year olds (or 30 or 50 year olds) many years later. Reading that really made me appreciate my experiences so far and the challenging as well as the great parts.
Thank you all for your love, letters and thoughts. Have a fantastic week and I’ll talk to you next Thursday!
Hermana Yorgason
No comments:
Post a Comment