May 14, 2013

1. our district in front of the temple

2. me and my companion by the CCM sign

3. MY FAMILIA

May 14, 2013

ok i am so jealous you got to talk to kales.  im jealous of both of you.  OMG WE ARE MISSIONARIES AT THE SAME TIME!!!!  Hey do you know an hermana shill??  she said she went to mountain view and she is friends with makenzy and brybry and amy, etc.  Anyway we have almost the same last night.

The mtc is GREAT!!!!  it is SUPEr nice here.  weird being in peru though but i forget half the time anyway because we are behind prison walls all day. um and yeah i have to force myself not to think about how long it is until i get to see you because otherwise i get sad and then i cant focus ALL DAY haha its horrible.  but i miss you soooo much!!!!!  life is good though.  having a comp 24 7 is rough (obvs) but shes awesome so itll be good.  our district is hilarious.  let me just saying, hanging out with a bunch of 18 year old boys all day is the funniest thing ever hahahaha they seriously crack me up.  we have the weirdest conversations and always end up dying of laughter over stuff that i swear would not be funny if we werent missionaries hahaha.  so far ive only cried once, last night.  and it wasnt out of homesickness it was out of freaking FRUSTRATION that i cant teach!!!!  does that sick feeling when they tell you you need to teach your investigator ever go away??  because if not, this could be a problem.

 

k well i gotta go but is ent you my family email (sorry its so dang long) and some pics.  write me bih i miss you like crazy!  i had a nightmare last night that you didnt write me.  it was terrible.  SO WRITE ME.

 

love you. miss you. stalk you. #missionariesjuntos #mgforlife #youdiein10weeks #imanewb #cometoecuador #bemycomp

 

LOVE LUSHIE LUSH

May 14, 2013

HOLA FAMILIA!!!!!

 

Fair warning, this is going to be LONG. 

 

So basically today is the best day ever because I JUST SAW MY GRANDPARENTS!!!!  YAY!!!  Also, its pday which I decided I love because after such a long week of studying and learning and trying to teach and crying because you cant (yes ladies and gentelemtn i finally had the inevitable breakdown we all saw coming last night) it is just exhausting.  So today we got to go to the temple and go to the store to buy some snacks and then i got back just as my grandparents were talking to seguridad and i almost died i was so excited to see them!  So let me start back at the beginning.

 

So we got here last wednesday night suuuuper late and it was really weird walking out of my airport with a bunch of other missionaries instead of my grandparents like my last three times coming here.  But we basicaly just got here, found out who our companions were, and went straight to bed.  next day was already full of classes and orientations and whatnot.  We got two extra nametags with the clip things that I really wanted and I was just so excited to officially be hermana chil that i was just jumping around up and down and hugging all the other hermanas.  haha ya about two hours later i crashed i was so exhausted.  anyway we had an orientation workshop in spanish with all the new latino missionaries and they gave us headsets and a translator.  it was super hard to understand though because the poor lady doesnt speak much english but she tried her best.  here is my lesson of the week: pride comes before the fall!!!  I remember listening to her and thinking to myself omg i could do so much better than this.  Well that was definitely prideful luisa coming out and I guess Heavenly Father needed to surpress her because a couple days later I was asked to translate the fireside (more on that later).

 

Our second day here we had a welcome fireside by the MTC president and at the end of it presidente cardon looked straight at me and was like "hermana chil will you pray for us?".  ok just in case any of you dont know i do NOT like praying in public!  so i got up there and asked him english or spanish and he said eihter one so i chose english but i got up there and my mind completely blanked on all english words and next thing i knew i was praying in spanish.  haha it was crazy but proof that the gift of tongues is real and im apparently not supposed to hide the fact that i can speak spanish (which was actually my plan).  Oh and by the way, when david and i were here last year, we had met the MTC president and his wife bui i wasnt sure if they would remember me.  Turns out that they do!  They remembered us and Hermana Cardon is looking for the picture we took together haha.

 

Um idk what else to say other than that we are in class ALL DAY LONG.  Its exhausting.  I bought a bunch of snacks today to get me through the week.  My companion is Hermana Parry and she is great.  Shes from Syracuse Utah and doesnt speak ANY spanish haha but i love her.  We struggle sometimes because in some ways we are a lot alike (for example we both like to talk a lot and we both are kind of spastic and hyper.  and we run into things and trip over ourselves).  But I think most of the time we get along pretty well.  At least much better than i ever imagined myself getting along with someone im with 24 7 haha.  Right now we are struggling because i speak a lot of spanish and she doesnt speak any so i end up talking way more than either of us want and she cnat really say anything in our lessons.  So we had our first lesson with our investiagor Gilberto last night and basically we both just started crying after when we were talking to one of our teachers about it because we were so frustrated.  BUT all is well because i think breaking down together brought us a little closer as a companionship haha as weird as that sounds.  And the teacher said we could try using more english for the time  being so that we can split the lesson evenly instead of one of us dominating and the other being lost the whole time.  I will admit though I never anticipated KNOWING the language to be challenge for me on my mission!

 

The food here is actually pretty good.  There are always two entrees to choose from so I always choose the one that seems less sketchy.  And I havent gotten sick yet!!! (knock on wood).  I havent even had a major headache which is kind of a big deal for me.  Ive been drinking water like crazy in an effort to avoid getting sick so basically I have to go pee all the time which means my companion always has to come with me haha poor girl.  but i am very much enjoying not being sick.

 

K so Sunday I had to translate the fireside and I was SO NERVOUS.  All the Norteamericanos were wishing me luck and kept turning around giving me thumbs up haha.  But at the end they all said I did a great job and asked me to do it again on thursday.  So it looks like this might become kind of a regular thing.  But its nice for me because since the classes are so basic i just get really bored and feel like im not progressing at all so now I feel like i can actually challenge myself a little bit.  Also today I didnt use headphones during the temple session so i did it all in spanish.  Thank goodness i went so often last semester because i was able to understand the majority of it.  Also at the temple today I saw Silvanas mom!!  Silvana was my bestie here in Peru, remember?  Anyway her mom came running up to me and i almost started crying i was just so excited.  Also one of my teachers is from our ward here in peru so he said he would bring silvana to visit me one of these days haha im kind of spoiled around here.  Because then today MY GRANDPARENTS CAME!!!  And my tia and Ana Ximena.  It was the best.  We got to talk for about half an hour and Ana Ximena just enjoyed herself staring at all the elders and falling in love with them.  She said she wants to be Mormon now haha.  But it was nice because my grandma asked me if I was happy here so I said yes and i explained what I had been doing and what im going to do.  As they were leaving I was showing them a picture of my mission on the map, my mission president, the prophet and apostles, and a picture of jesus christ and they were very impressed.  My grandma said she could understand why I am so happy because I am in such a great environment.  The Spirit is real everyone because even my grandparents felt it!!

 

Oh and one more quick story - today while walking from the temple a bird pooped ON MY HEAD.  It was disgusting.  So right now i am sitting here with bird poop in my hair and i really want to shower.  #gross

 

K well I think that is it!  Basically life is pretty good and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be here and be a missionary!!!  The spirit here is amazing and we are all just so excited to be here and to be missionaries.  I love you all and miss you soooo much!!!!!!  Oh and also, dont forget - NO PACKAGES to the MTC (but mom i will need at least one in ecuador (i have a list of things i need).  But the POUCH mail and DEARELDER work great.  I just got the dearelder i wrote myself last week haha it was kind of awkward explaining to the missionaries why i wrote myself a letter but they thought it was funny.

 

K LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!  Pictures in the next email.

 

Love,

Hermana Chil

 

P.S. thanks everyone who emailed me!!!!  I had a nightmare last night that no one wrote me haha so thanks for NOT making that dream come true.