Friday, January 11, 2013

Jan 9, 2013 - The Flu has subsided.


How's it going? The CCM is good, and the stomach flu epidemic has officially subsided, so cheers for health. One of my companions did end up getting it, and my other comp and I got a watered down version that had all the stomach pain and exhaustion with none of the relief of actually being sick. It was a tender mercy (in a way) because we got to go to classes and teach, etc, and we had one of our best lessons ever as a result. We were one hermana down, but it was awesome.
Missionaries leave the Christmas Morning Devotional at the Missionary Training Center in Provo on Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2012.  (Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)

I'm glad errbody got home safe and that y'all had a fun time together. Wish I could've been there, but this is where I'm supposed to be when I'm supposed to be. We got 4 new branches, bringing it to a total of 61 branches. They're going to be increasing the number of missionaries in branches from the current 30-40 to 60-80. Essentially, missionary work is exploding and it's so exciting. (side note: I ran into a family history missionary at the temple a few weeks ago... did you know they wear their nametags on the opposite side? She said that we wears our on the right for the living, she wears hers on the left b/c she's doing missionary work for the dead. Cool, huh?)

As far as Spanish, we will be done with learning new things by tomorrow, which means I am expected to be fluent by tomorrow.... let's just talk about how much that's not reality. haha. But my maestros and ZRTs (assistant teachers?) say my Spanish is muy bueno, so I'm satisfied. The Lord has helped me so much with Spanish, so I'll take whatever I've got and be glad of it. The French honestly hasn't helped at all. I'm sure it helps other people, but my brain only has two categories: English and Other. Spanish is filling up the other, so (very sadly) the little French I retained from High school is as sparse as the bristles on a pig's nose. But, I'm glad that Spanish has to be the language to kick French out, because I'm pretty sure I was meant to speak Spanish. It flows so much more smoothly than English, and it makes so much more sense. Like I said, it's my native tongue, but I'm only just now learning it. As far as the Honduran accent, it's very harsh and strong, but they dont' speak nearly as fast as Nicaraguans. Also, they say "va" at the end of everything. And they drop Ss like nobody's business.

Thanks for the scripture. I always love getting those. :)
As for the silent testimony meeting [Lakes Ward had a bit of a lag in the flow of testimony meeting in January 2013], some of my favorites are the ones where the spirit rather than the people do the talking. Although I must say, after attending BYU, it's always weird being in a sacrament meeting where there isn't a line of at least 20 people waiting to bear testimony. If the ward doesn't warm up to each other, my advice would be to make them. Nobody's going to be upset at someone for coming and saying hello. :) I bet as time goes on, things will get better and the ward will be even more excellent than before.
 
I liked [Eileen's] Portuguese. :) I always keep an ear out for Portuguese missionaries. I ran into some on the way up here to write this email. You're right about the Portuguese understanding the Spanish better than the Span understanding the Port. jaja I can testify of that first hand.
The Samuelsons are great people with lots of wisdome and beautiful life experiences. I bet it was cool hearing their talk.
I LOVE that talk by Pres. Monson. I think it's from the Priesthood session of October's conference. I've already used it so many times in context of the mission. In fact, I shared that talk with my district yesterday. So good. :)
Hope all's well with you and that Ellie is doing well. Oh, by the way, say hi to Sondra for me if you will. :)
 haha. My week's been good. We've got a new investigator and our whole schedule/teachers/life has been changed around because of the new changes with the new year. it's all good though.
The Jeremiah scripture was way cool. I'm rereading the Bible and I'm excited to get to him. he was one of Nephi's favorties too, if I recall. Can't be too bad of a guy with company like you [Greg Jr] and Nephi, eh? :D
I especially liked what you said about how you can't put half your heart in and expect to tget everything out.
 Anyway, my time is short today. I hope y'all are doing well and that you're happy as chimpanzees (but maybe a little bit better behaved hahah). I love y'all!
 Hna B

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