#5 Last Week in the CCM

LAST WEEK IN THE CCM. WOO TO THE HOOTY HOOT HOOT.

This time next week I will actually be in the field, doing actual missionary things, and teaching real people.  The time has flown by so fast, but then again I feel like I was born in the CCM.  It´s going to be weird not practicing Spanish with Claudia the janitor everytime I go to the bathroom.  It´s going to be a  change not eating enchiladas with yogurt for breakfast. Oh how I am going to miss the sounds of 500 fireworks going at all hours of the day.  But soon I will be back in the Estados Unidos (fist pump in the air) eating oatmeal for breakfast, and only hearing fireworks once a year.  Dang.  

Haha, as much as I complain about the CCM, I wouldn´t change the experiences I have had here for the world. I have had my lowest of lows, but more frequently highest of highs.  I have slowly seen how the Lord is changing me and is using my strengths to bless the lives of others.  Being able to do the Lord´s work is truly the greatest joy, and I am not even a real missionary yet.  

This week the real people we taught were a father and son, I son´s name was Seth and he was the cutest two year old thing in the world.  he broke all my pens and almost electricuated himself in a 15 minute span.  It was awesome.  But our lesson was on how we can receive answers to our prays through the scriptures.  He then shared his testimony with us about how he found the church and how the escriptures answered so many of his prayers.  I felt the spirit so strongly.

Also we taught "Erika" last week who is really our teacher.  But I had a super strong feeling that we needed to teach her about missionary work.  That she needed to share the testimony that she had with someone.  It turned out that in real life, she did have a friend who resently separated from her husband and was going down hill.  She was so sweet to share with us how the experience helped her.  Every day I learn that I am not the teacher but just a mouthpiece for the spirit.  

If you weren´t able to watch Elder Scott´s funeral I highly suggest you do.  It so moving and so powerful to hear the joy that there was.  This life is not the end, only just a brief moment.  We have to much more to look forward to after this life.  Now is just a time to prepare.  I am so grateful for the temple and for the amazing sealing power that is gives to us.  Being baptized is not enough, we need go through the temple and be sealed in order to receive the highest degree of glory.  I hope that when I teach my investigators I will be able to share the testimony I have of the temple, and help them reach that goal one day.

AWKWARD

So apperently there are these things in Arizona called javelinas.  Elder Hatch who is from AZ was telling us about them today.  They are these huge hairy pigs that run around in packs at night and chase people.  Wow ok.  Also Poor little Hermana Garcia is pregnant and throws up every day and it echos through the halls, but she is so happy about.  She literally will wave and smile so big as she is skipping to the bathroom.  I hope I am that happy when I am pregnant.  

this picture explain how we feel that we only get to be companions for one more week.

The Elders really liked the we made so they had to take a picture too

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#4 "Turn out not in"

My companion and I

Hello

I don´t know if its just because I have been here a month or because we got a new chef or something, but big news.  I LIKE THE FOOD.  I know you all are so proud of me. So no I have not gone hungry this week.  Hermana Batty and Hermana Norton left this week.  I hope they are doing well out there in Chile, but I wish they were here with me still to talk about Nacho Libre with me. 

I am still in the CCM and I am learning more and more everyday.  Spanish is starting to get into the complicated scary part but I say bring it on.  I have so many flash cards sprawled all over the floor.  So many crazy words flying through my head.  I have been praying like crazy for desire to work harder.  Prayers so for sure get answered.  

Everyday is pretty much the same here in the CCM but here are some of my favorites this week.  We watched a devotional By Elder Bednar about the difference between Christ and us.  The difference is that  when we want to turn into ourselves, he turns out.  After he had suffered for all of our sins through the most painful moments in teh history of the world, gone out to see that his apostles couldn´t have even stayed awake one hour, and after he was betrayed by his own friend with a kiss, he still able to turn out and heal one of the guards that is trying to arrest him.  I am still trying to figure out how to change and turn away from the natural man myself this week.  

Also we were able to teach another person this week, who was not one of our teachers.  Thanks the Cielo.  Her name was Laura, who is an very active member of the church and volunteered just for fun.  She was so cute, but I had not idea what the heck she was saying.  She was even talking really slow.  So the conversation wasn´t very interesting in the beginning, but  I asked her to share with us a little about her family.  She explained that she is a member and her husband is a member but her brothers and sisters are not.  I had a prompting to share a scripture with her, and I asked her if she had faith that God answered her prayers.  She kinda looked at me funny but said yes.  then I had another prompting that she needed to share her faith with her brothers and sisters.  That one of them needed the gospel.  We all started bawling, and I don´t know if we is acting on our invitation to her, but I got to see a little bit of what the field may be like.  

Another thought, hope is not just wishful thinking, but when we hope in Christ it becomes the strongest expectation. 

AWKWARD

Hermana Kynaston was teaching me yesterday ( We act like we are investigators) and we were outside.  The workers were mowing the lawns like they do every single day so I couldn´t hear her very well.  She just kept teaching and then she yelled at me "I said Do you BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL"  right when they stopped mowing, it was awesome.   Also I find it quite awkward how often our Elders bring up high school musical into our conversation.  They know every line to all the movies, its kind of impressive actually.

all the hermanas saying goodbye to the hermanas

ps sorry for the million emails, mexico computers don´t like me

#3 "I ate a potato sandwich today"

This week has been one for the books ladies and gentlemen.

First of all we talk REAL PEOPLE THIS WEEK.  Can you believe that they trust us with real people already?  It was only a ten minute lesson, but We got to get to know them pretty well, which is so important when you are a missionary.  At least thats what my fake investigators tells me.  

My absolute favorite part of this week was so special, and such a tender mercy for me.  If you know me at all, you know that the temple is my favorite thing in the enitre world.  Not being able to go the past 3 weeks has been tough for me.  I have been craving it like crazy.  Well, the Mexico city temple finally was rededicated on sunday!  We were able to watch the cultural celebration, and to be honest it was a little bit painful to watch haha.  It made me understand how much spanish i DONT know.  It was cool though to be able to see how Mexico sees the stories in the book of Mormon.  

So the was on Saturday, then Sunday morning was the redecitcation.  Presidant Eyring and Presidant Holland were both there, and they both spoke and it was so amazing. I was a mess with tears. 

Then today guess what I did.  I went to a session in the Temple.  It was honesetly one of the most humbling experciences of my life. Even though I may not have understood every word of the session, I understood the spirit.  He was speaking loud and clear.  There were some women who were sitting in front of me and in the middle of the sesson they all just started crying.  They said they were just so grateful to finally have a temple close to them again.  I am so grateful to have lived in a place that no matter where i was, I could get to the temple in 30 minutes.  It truly is the House of the Lord.  

This week I defiantly learned a lot, but as I have looking back at my notes the word CONSECRATION has been written down 8 times, in the last three days.  As a missionary I am slowly learning what it truly means to give all I have to God, and it is defiantly harder than I thought it was going to be.  I didn´t think it was going to be hard sacrifing myself for others 24/7, but it is.  The natrual man in me likes to be a little selfish.  It is so important for us though to give our entire selfs to HIm.  That is when we start to see miracles happen.  That is when we are converted.  It is crazy to think that I have to convert myself to this church if I want to convert others.  I have to do the same exact things that I ask my investigators to do.  I love that.  I love that I can truly testify that we can change, because I can see how God is changing me, by keeping the commitments that I said I would to Him.  

AWKWARD

Oh yeah I had a mashed potatoe sandwich for lunch.  And it was Mexico´s independance day yesterday.  I were going to try and stay up and watch the fireworks (which isn´t a good idea anyway, it breaks like 12 mission rules)  but then Presidant Call said if we did we would be shot. So we just laid in bed and listened to them until 3 in the morning.  Hermana Batty got a love note from one of the Lantinos telling her that she looks like an angel.  It also said he wanted to talk to her but it was too late, he had already left.  So she is going to email him and tell him thank you, but no thank you.  We were dying.  Oh the other day somehow during the day my skirt got tucked into my garnments.  I don´t know how long it was like that so the WHOLE CCM probably saw my WHOLE bum all day.  I am such a dignified missionary.

1. Thanks Papa for the huge package, It has made me pretty popular here.

2. The most beautiful bus, oh yeah and the temple.

3. My hermanas de un orta mama

4.  Do not fret friends, I am still hipster

#2 "The hermanas in my room"

Hey everyone!  I can not believe it is already my next p day.  

The CCM is literally the most wonderful place on earth. Everyday is just better than the next because you are able to let the Spirit take control of you more and more everyday. 

My mom wants me to talk about the other Hermanas in my room so I will.  My compañera is Hermana Cloward who is the sweetest of all the sweets.  She is serving in Tempe as well, which is such a tender mercy for me.  She is from Grantsville utah, which is where the Forever Strong was filmed.  She is pretty proud of that hahah.  She is trying to convince me to go to a country concert with her when we get home.  Not happening.  Hermana Huxford is from Indiana, and she is serving in the Salt Lake City Mission.  How cray is that!! she is the coolest and has two different colored eyes.  We always sing together, but she is alot better than me.  I joined the choir because of her this week which if you have heard me sing, you will understand why everyone laughs at me.  Hermana Kynaston is from Draper Utah just around the mountain from us.  Mom she goes to J Crew all the time and said she has seen you before. We always talk about the funny vines that we use to watch.  We like to think we are pretty funny.  As for the rest of my district we are closer than ever.  We had family home evening the other night.  Elder Lopez went home last week sadly, but he sent us donuts so we celebrated.  If you look really close in the picture you can see one of our teachers.  He is the funniest little guy.  Also Hermana Norton and Hermana Batty are the best sisters in the CCM.  We celebrated Hermana Norton´s birthday this week with our zone and costco cake.  Who know Mexico had a Costco??

So I have an announcement... We have two baptisms this week!! Well... kind of haha.  Our investigators are actually fake, and they are our teachers.  But we got both of them to commit to baptism. There is no better feeling to see the people you teach grow closer to the Savior.  I am not going to lie, being a missionary is hard.  Sometimes it seems like we go through so many trials all day.  But the reward of seeing the light of Christ grow in someone else is so rewarding.  I´m choking up just thinking about it.  I am such a baby.  

Also Sunday´s in the CCM are the most amazing things.  We had fast and testimony meeting this week, and guess what?  I was brave enough to bare my testimony IN ESPAÑOL.  Cue the applause.  Thank you thank you everyone.  Even though it was very simple, the spirit was so strong.  Learning a language is hard, but the gift of tongues is so real.  Not only have I been able to understand the Spanish language more and more, but I am understanding the voice of the spirit.  There are way to many experiences this week that followed a prompting and the consequence of it was amazing.  I will have to tell you another time. Sorry.  But we all could use the gift of tongues is all I have to say.  

Awkward.

So the food still tastes bad, but I am learning how to just eat without tasting anything.  I also might live off of peanut butter and nutella sandwiches.  I don´t know.  Also We watched this video about stress management this week, and this cute little hispanic guy was like (read in nacho libre voice) " to stop stress I uh, move my head.  And I uh stretch my foots. "  I don´t know about you guys but I thought that was hilarious.  Also remember Ivan? Well like I said, we found out he is now our teacher.  On out last lesson we decided to give him a card telling him how much we love him.  Hermana Kynaston is an artist so her card was seriously amazing, our card however was a little more simple, and I have have written it with my left hand.  When i asked him later if he liked it he said, " uh si, pero it looked like a niño drew it."  How rude.  hahah It is ok I still love Ivan.

#1 First letter from the MTC

The CCM is one of the most beautiful places ever!  There are palm trees everywhere, the scenery is amazing, and the people her make it even better.  When we got off of the plane they put all 50 of us missionaries onto buses and shipped us the CCM. The drive there was a little scary, aparently no one follows traffic laws here, good thing we had the Lord on our side or I would have started freaking out.  Luckily we made it safe and sound, and apparently right when our bus pulled in Elder Chirstoferson pulled out which is kinda a bummer but that´s ok.  The first couple of days were filled with lots of meetings and an overwhelming amount of Spanish.  To be honest every night I would lay in my bed thinking of ways that I could escape and get out of Mexico.  I was so confused, so frustrated with the language and my hate for Mexican food has only grown here haha.  I honestly thought what did I do?  

But then we started to teach our first investigator. His name is Ivan and I love him.  Though we can not speak Spanish very well, we are still able to bring the spirit every single time we are with him, and he is able to recognize that.  It has honestly been the hardest experience of my life, and I truly miss you all.  I have never been humbled so many times in such a short period.  But I also have never been closer to el Espiritú Santo in my life.  I have grown so much in the past two days, I wish I could tell you every thing that has happened but I don,t have time!!  All I can say is that there is no where else I would rather be right now, and that I know that I have un Padre Celestial who knows me and knows that I can conquer this language.  He needs me to be his tool!  He needs us all to be his tools! He trusts me with His work, how incredible is that?

I guess I should tell you about my district.  I have the best district in the entire world.  Period I do not care what you say.  It is true.  We have cuatro hermanas in our district which is super rare and super fun.  We have seriously the most incredible time together, and they became my friends instantly.  Hermana Huxford y Hermana Kynaston are companions are seriously I feel like I have know them my whole life.  We laugh way to hard together.  Its like an old fashion sleep over every night haha.  Hermana Cloward is my companion who I love so much.  She is so good about reminding me what it means to be an obedient missionary and how to always have the spirit with us.  We have learned so much about what works and what doesnt when teaching Ivan and we have been humbled many times hahahah the other day we were teaching the word of wisdom and all of the sudden the spirit left, neither of us could speak spanish and Hermana Cloward started to cry hahahaha IT WAS AWFUL.  We realized that we werent allowing the Spirit to teach and that we needed to shape up.  We have our next lesson today and we know it will be amazeballs.  

AWKWARD MINUTE

In my first lesson I asked Ivan if his brothers could have kids, instead of did they have kids.  He was really creeped out, then I asked him if he had a girlfriend and creeped him out even more. Also Hermana Huxford got a blessing by our branch president and he said "I now place your hands in your head"  I seriously laughed for about 20 minutes.  I can}t blame him though, cause my spanish is muy mal.  Then yesterday, oh my goodness, It was my job to clean the water dispenser things in the comador, I managed to spill 20 liters of water all over the place.  They told me I could go back to class after that hahahhah Man I am embarassing.  

I love you all so much and thank you for your prayers!! I defiantly feel them, please know that I am safe and so incredibly happy.  I have never been happier than I am at this moment.  Doing God´s work is such an honor for me and I can{t wait to see the way he is able to bless the investigators lives I teach.  LOVE YOU 

Hermana Lambert

this is Hermana Huxford, Hermana, Kynaston, Hermana Cloward, and Elder Pedelski y Elder Lopez who are mi faves and the rest of my amazing distict herE at the CCM