Dear Family,
Wow. Okay only 30 min to check and write back for email... not a whole lot, but apporpriate to help us stay focused on the work here and in the missionary field. Mom and Dad, I forgot to attatch grandma and grandpa's emails in my contacts so could you maybe send that to me? Thank you so much! My P-Day will typically be on Fri. but yesterday was so busy with "new missionary" meetings and classes, etc. that it was moved this week to today! P-day with General Conference... a great combination! Although I am not really ready for a pday right now... I want to keep learning more!!!! I wrote the family and Jessica each letters and will sent those on Monday so will try to include something else other than what I have already written. Dad, thank you for the very sweet and encouraging letter...nothing better to say with this work than "God's speed"! It is HIS work and I love it her. I can't say yet that I am ready to go out into the mission field down in Paraguay because there is so much work that I need to do with learning the language.
Family guess what?!! I am only allowed to pray in spanish now! I can actually say more than I ever thought I would be able to after only three days...missionaries obtain so much help from the Lord but ONLY thorugh our hard work and diligence can He bless us with the gift of tounges. There is a saying here that the days feel like weeks and the weeks like days. It is very true (in a very good way :). From six am to 10:30 my day is packed with learning... there is a lot of structure, but also a lot of the learning and time is surprisingly left up to our own discression. It is a blessing that they do it this way if you are willing to stay focused and work hard.
Mom, thank you so much for your DearElder (funny that you were in the MathLab... I am sure the family is excited to see you). I never realized how much getting mail felt like Christmas. Our meistro, Brother Talataina told us that on his mission he was a terrible Elder to write because he would never write back. His attitude was kinda: "hey you guys, see you in two years!" I admire my teacher a lot for his diligence. He was and is a very strong leader and I couldn't ask for a more loving teacher. BUT that is definitly not my attitude with letter writting! While I know that I will not and do not have a lot of time, I love my family very much and want them to know that!!! Mom and Jess honestly, when you two dropped me off I was so excited to be going, but after I dropped off my bags, put on my name badge and sat down in our first meeting, I felt SO homesick. Don't worry, it doesnt' end there :) For the first two hours I just missed my family so much but as I prayed and started to "get to work" that missing family was taken away... not completely...but almost like the Savior, through His atonement replaced only momentarily the spot that I felt was missing in my life. I feel like I am in the best situation!!! I miss my family so much that if I take my mind off of the work, I am sad but so far, after my first one or two hours I have been completely fine. Wow. Another miracle in my life.
(please tell sister Christopher thank you for her DearElder also. You can tell that she loved her mission.)
I absolutely love my companions...Hermana Applegate and Hermana Jessica Willnauer (Mom, this ist hte friend that I told you about!!! We are MTC companions!!!!!). We have so much fun together and have a lot of fun helping eachother learn the language and learn to work as a companionship to help eachother do better and help set goals for our companionship to be more effective. I wrote this in the letter but I want to tell you because it is so exciting! We taught our first "investigator" Pablo!! They have teachers here that role play as investigators adn we only teach in spanish and they only converse to us in spanish! Our first class here, our teacher walked in and only speaks in spanish to us also! Complete impersion.
Well I have about three more min... We are about to head to the other converence session. Family, I LOVE hearing how you are doing. Thank you for all of your love and support. I realize more and more that this mission, while it is My mission that I am serving for the Lord, you are also serving so much thriough all of your love, support and prayers.
I will bear testimony in spanish with what time I have and bear testimony more next week:
Yo se que el Libro de Mormon es la palabra de Dios y que Thomas S. Monson es un profeta de nosotros Padre ...
ah out of time! love you alllllllllllllll :)
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