Week 6 in Mexico

I am officially in Mexico!! It is very hot and very brown, but they have these beautiful flower bush/trees. It’s crazy different here. There are at least a thousand mosquitoes and I think I am being eaten alive! I won’t meet my companion until tomorrow morning, and I’m kind of freaking out! So nervous because I have come to the obvious realization that I know NO Spanish! So this will be interesting. lol  

“Tomorrow the real work begins.” Name that movie. You better have said Mulan. I’m about to pass out, so chaio!

Week 5 at the MTC

So this is officially my last week in the MTC! It is now time to freak out. lol. I don't feel like my Spanish has improved since week three. Hijalo! Good news is that it is now extremely hard to write emails and in my journal without wanting to write Spanish words. That's good, right? I have a very strong feeling that my first companion is going to be native. Then I will cry every day because I can't understand her. lol It’s sad now that I'm almost done at the MTC. I've made friends with other districts and I'm super close with all my hermanas. It's actually going to be kind of sad to leave.

We got a chance to teach an ACTUAL nonmember this week. It was so crazy! She was nice and taught us about her religion. It just made me realize how much more I love our knowledge of the gospel. She focused on that we are all sinners, we cannot change, and we will never be worthy. Overall it sounded pretty depressing. But our gospel is a gospel of happiness, hope and change. I love it! It made me want to go out and teach more. 

This week we had to teach the elders, one on one. It was a chance for us to learn how to teach people, not lessons. I taught Elder Debono, he is the Australian elder. I would ask him a question and he would just nod and then I would ask him again and he would just nod, because he had no idea what I was saying! lol But I gave him all my notes for the lesson for him to read on his own time, and I think it helped him? At least he said it did. It is so much easier to teach him then real investigators.

This week was Hermana Zenger's bday! So we ate junk food and cupcakes and had a little party before we had to go to bed.

Week 4 at the MTC

This Sunday I was called as the Sister Training Leader, which means I'm over all the girls and what not. I have absolutely NO idea why I was called for it! It's so rough because the last girl was really good. She always had something to say and is just a natural leader. I am not! I absolutely HATE having people look at me. Yesterday I had to lead a discussion on a chapter of the BOM and afterwards I just wanted to go and cry in a corner because I did so badly. lol I know the girls, and I'm close to all of them, which makes me feel like I should do a better job with helping them. All the girls have lots of little problems (because we are just starting) and it makes me so mad because I don't know how to help! Blah.

This week is going so much better. Our whole district is kind of in freak out mode. We only have 11 more days until we are in Mexico! 11 days until I have to teach REAL people and try and speak the language without making up words, because these people won't know English. Yeah, you can say I'm kind of stressing out. Lol

Last night was our one-month mark! Our last class of the day was really good and spiritual. One of our teachers gave a GREAT demonstration on how to teach. Man am I not teaching correctly. lol So one of the sisters was crying during the demonstration and once our teachers left the WHOLE district was crying! lol I'm not even joking we had a cry fest for like 20 minutes. Everyone was crying because of the spirit, frustration, feelings of inadequacy, family, language - everything that has accumulated over the past month. It was actually pretty funny. Afterwards we had a party in my apartment and everyone brought a TON of food. We ate so much! I'm going to get fat.

One day this week one of the sisters was crying during class and one of the guy teachers was talking to her and her companion. Later, I asked him how different it was teaching elders vs. teaching sisters. He said it's WAY different! He said he constantly has to humble elders, especially after lessons they teach. He can be a lot tougher on them. He said the sisters beat themselves up. After lessons they always have to comfort someone and encourage girls. He said that it doesn't make sense because in his experience sisters just invite the spirit so much more and teach with such love. He said that he prefers teaching sisters, even though we cry a lot. He said that we need to remember that we are daughters of God and we are given that extra touch of loving others. I love ours teachers, they are the best.

Week 3 at the MTC

We have so many investigators I can't keep them straight! There is Elida who is super nice. Then there's Ivellisse, who always has a TON of questions and knows the Bible ridiculously well. She kind of scares me. lol I teach her with five other girls, so only one girl talks the whole time and the rest of us sit there. It makes me mad. We are doing TRC once a week, where we teach two members for 20 minutes each. Those are bad because usually they are native and REALLY hard to understand! lol

Then our lessons with Alejandro are going okay? We haven't really had a good lesson with him yet. Yesterday I just wanted to die I was so embarrassed after our lesson! lol First, I was trying to say "I ask" which is "pedir". I thought conjugated in the you form would be "pedo". But nooo! It's irregular and it's "peido". "Pedo" means fart!! So I said "pedo" at least a million times in my conversation before my companion told me what it means!! lol. I was so embarrassed!!

Then the past two days my companion and I had been preparing hard core for our lesson with Alejandro. We were determined to have a great lesson! We studied answers to his questions and we were excited for the lesson. Butttt because we were so prepared we got nervous and scared, since we were putting so much pressure on ourselves. Then ten minutes before our lesson we were told we would only have five minutes instead of twenty-five. We were freaking out! So when we knocked on the door I think ALL of our stress and frustration we had been holding in the past three weeks came bubbling up. We said "hi", which was followed by an awkward silence. Then I said something stupid and he mocked me. We all started laughing and we couldn't stop. It's like one of those times you laugh so hard and you don't know if it's because something's funny, or you're just frustrated. Yeah, it was bad. So we had to start over, and it was bad again. I just wanted to die. lol I hope he doesn't think that we are not taking our lessons seriously. I'm pretty embarrassed, and I don't think I ever want to go back again. lol

My Spanish is getting better. Starting Monday I'm making a promise not to speak English anymore, until I leave the MTC. I'm having difficulties, but we have the best teachers in the MTC. They help a lot and I can always feel the Spirit with them. I think they get slightly frustrated with us sometimes though because we are kind of dumb, but it's a work in the progress I suppose.

Week 2 at the MTC

Sometimes I wish I was going English speaking. Trying to teach, bear testimony, and make jokes in a different language is soooooo difficult! Some days I try to only speak Spanish during the day and I'm usually mute on those days. lol. I had a really weird dream the other day. I was teaching Alejandro (one of our investigators) and when I woke up I was teaching the lesson out loud in Spanish. It was so weird. I'm glad I didn't wake my companion or she would have been freaked out! lol

We got new elders last week and one is from Australia! While we were at lunch we were talking to him and we asked him to come play volleyball with us. He said that he couldn't because he wasn't allowed on the court with his "thongs" on. lol! We were like, "What?" And his companion was like "I don't think they know what those are." He was talking about his flip flops! It was so funny! He was kind of embarrassed after that. It made me feel better because I'm constantly butchering the Spanish language and saying stupid things. I say so many ridiculous things I can't even think of them all right now! lol.

Oh, look up 3 Nephi 27; it's a great chapter in the Book of Mormon. Only like three and a half weeks left! I leave the 31st.  :)