Week Three

Literally have no time but will try to summarize.  I love my district. I love em. I looove em. I love when the mist slowly burns off the hills here. And the hills are LUSHest. It's a bit like California...but better. #sorrynotsorry. Hna. Weatherford coined the term Guatemullet today. The mullet is alive and well here. I want you ALL to find online and watch Elder Holland's August 30, 2011 MTC Devotional (Grams birthday!). It is so powerful I can't stand it. And so applicable for everyone, really. PLEASE WATCH IT. I got to go through the temple in Spanish today, which was hard but amazing and so worth it. I love the people, I love the city (now that I've actually gone past these 4 CCM walls!). "When you are beat down, drug down, spat on, rejected, and despised, you are standing shoulder to shoulder with the world's greatest missionary." "This mission experience is so hard because Salvation is not a cheap experience. It wasn't easy for Christ, so tell me why you think it should be easy for you. You are His disciples. THE ROAD TO SALVATION ALWAYS GOES THROUGH GETHSEMANE. You pray to be more like Christ? You have to shed some of the tears he shed. You must peach his gospel, by his spirit, feeling his feelings. This work is hard because the Atonement is hard. Healing is hard. It will take the best you've got for as long as you can give it, in that reach for perfection. But there is more than we've ever dreamed or hoped of ahead. I love you, in your youth, for somehow getting enough of the picture to be here, for squaring your shoulders and facing this." - Elder Holland. I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH. Sorry I couldn't write more, but know that I love you all and know with all my heart that God loves us and that this gospel is true, that it's his love for us shown here. xxxxxxx Tabby

 

Week Four

Hiii all.

So you should all write me on Sundays, because when we write home changes so much here in the CCM that Sunday is the only day that ensures I'll get it. If that makes sense. My English is as bad as my Spanish these days!

 

Entonces.

Not sure what to write this week, except that I love the CCM, I love my companera, I love my friends here, and I love the work. I am so flipping excited to get out in the field and begin changing lives - terrified, too, naturally, but more and more excited with every day. We watched a devotional (I'm going to miss devotionals so much out in the field, they're such a nice spiritual boost) by Elder Neil Anderson, and it was great. Some lovely things he said: "The very essence of eternal life is to love God and love others." "After our trials comes a blessing." "But it is true, and how wonderful it is that you can proclaim it." After the devotional, we had testimony meeting as a district. Who I love. Have I mentioned? Once or even twice? It was so great. I wish I could somehow get investigators into our district meetings. They wouldn't understand it all, but gosh by golly would they feel it. The Spirit is always so strong and that has to be my favorite part of my district and the CCM - you can always, always, always feel God's love for you. And the compliment circle thing, where whoever says the prayer gets a sincere compliment from everyone in the district? I love it, I love it, I love it. It brings the Spirit and fosters so much love.  I love my district. I love my Latinas. I love my companera. I love my family. I love my friends. I love this gospel. I love my mission. I love my Savior. I love my God. I am so happy to be here, you guys. It's already hard, honestly, and I know it's going to get much harder in the field, but I do think it's also going to be a bit more rewarding. I just keep reminding myself that I can do anything for 18 months, and what better to do than tell people God loves them and wants them to be happy? Nuthin. Everyone deserves to know that they are a son or daughter of God and that he loves them accordingly. Everyone. My favorite Spanish word right now is "mansa", which means "still waters". Pretty, no?

Thank you all so much for your nine million e-mails last week; it gets crazy trying to answer them all but I love getting them.

Hermana Brewster and I have had a couple of really amazing lessons recently; it's been great because even when our lessons don't go as we'd like, the Spirit is still present for every single one of them. And right now we're just practicing with our teachers! But it's quite comforting to Hermana Brewster and I that even though we're not great teachers, we can still at least bring the Spirit to the lesson, which is the most important part, anyways.

Sorry, guys, I didn't prepare something to write this week, so I'm just kind of blabbing on, now!

OH. The word for scarf is BUFANDA. That's such a black girl name and I love it.

Pleeease read Hebrews 11. It's stupidly beautiful and stirring and I don't know how I've never known about it. It's all "by faith, this, then by faith, this, then by faith, this", and it just keeps building on itself until you're overwhelmed with happiness. So read it, por favor. Paul is the maaaaaaan.

The other day, Hermana Chavez, trying to teach us future tense, asked, "Where there's a will..." and we all obediently answered, "There's a way."  She wrinkled her nose up and said, "No, it's a future!" #ClashOfTheCultures

Hna. Brewster's birthday was on Saturday, and the elders all wrote her the sweetest, funniest card ever. And the phrase "Merry Womb Emancipation Day" may or may not have been used. Then we went to Hna. Weatherford's room and used her secret stash of Oreos as a cake. Weatherford cupped her flashlight between her hands to make it glow and clicked it off when Brewster blew on it. #bestbirthdayever?

And I love burger day at the CCM because the burgers are incredibly strange and frankly a little disgusting, but they have french fries and then break out the mayo and ketchup, and you know what that means. FRY SAUCE.

Yesterday, after we got to practice being investigators for each other, I asked Hna. Chavez if the teachers all get a kick out of being our investigators in class. Her face was hilarious. "A keek? Do we keek our investigators?" The language barrier will never fail to amuse me. Not to mention there's a dozen things in Spanish that make me scrunch my face up the exact same way.

24-hour CCM fast. Twenty. Four. Hours. That is all.

Testimony meeting at church yesterday was lovely. And I think it was so good to remind all of us Nortes who are struggling with the Spanish to remember how powerful even a broken-Spanish testimony can be. Testimony and the Spirit, man. And love. (And hippy phrases, apparently. The end.)

"Serving a mission is not an opportunity but a privilege."

"God is, not was. God speaketh, not spoke." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

On Sundays we watch a lot of movies, and we couldn't get the projector to work in color yesterday (It's not a day at the CCM without something going wrong, and I love it), so we watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration in black and white. And it came to pass that many hipster jokes were made.

"How do we endure well?"

"We trust in God, and then go on."

"Anyone who truly loves God wants to share it with not only his family, but with the whole human race."

"A voice of gladness for the living and the dead. Shall we not go on in so great a cause?"

 

"Other religions have great truths, but we have all the truth. We invite people to ADD ON to the other truths they treasure."

"The great purpose of missionary work is to do something for our brothers and sisters that is a little like what Christ did for us." - Elder Dallin H. Oaks

"We are intent...on blessing mankind."

Hope that wasn't a too subpar letter, loves!

Know that I love you and am praying for all ya'll.

And I love you.

Have I mentioned I love you?

All of you.

Con ALL the amor,

Tabby