HOLA :)
This past week has been absolutely incredible which i didn't think i would be saying since i do almost the same thing EVERY SINGLE DAY. But I have never ever learned so much about myself, this gospel and everyone around me so much before.
Last week when i was emailing i heard crying in the corner and then a someone say that their grandma had just passed away. I couldn't help but tear up along with this Elder, not even knowing who it was. Then out walks an Elder in my zone. Let me just tell you that my zone is like family to me. My district is like my immediate family here, and my zone is like my extended family. My heart hurt so bad for this Elder, and i couldn't help but feel a little bit of what he was feeling, since my grandpa passed away almost one year ago. I didn't know what to do, or how to help but knew that I needed to do something. I sat down that afternoon and since it was Pday i had some extra time. I took some time to write this Elder a little note just expression my support to him and told him a little bit about my experience i had when my grandpa passed away, hoping that something i said would help him. As i finished the letter and reread it, i realized that i was not the one who wrote that letter, i was merely just an instrument for the Lord because the words i said were not my own, but His. What an incredible experience to be able to be the Lord's hand here at the CCM. oh ps that MTC in spanish. haha
anyways, the rest of my week was just as amazing. Hard. But amazing. so many opportunities to come closer to my Heavenly Father, and learn more about myself. We currently have 2 "investigators" but they are really just our teachers. But man they are good actors and i get scared every time we have to go teach. I've been able to say a little bit more this week in Spanish and do more than just say the opening prayer and read a scripture so that's good :) haha it's cool that even though i can't figure out exactly what the investigator is saying all the time, i pick up on bits and pieces and still feel the spirit prompting me in the way i should take my lesson. This one time i had a very strong prompting to invite our investigator to pray. I knew how to say that in Spanish so i invited him and then he looked at me and said "Como?" And i was like shoot. how do you explain how to pray in spanish? So ya know what, i just pulled out my trusty game of charades. (I'm getting really good at that game btw.) haha so i pointed at him and then i pointed at me knees and said "Aqui" which means here and knelt down on the ground then said "aqui" again and folded my arms and then said it one last time and pointed at my eyes closed. hahaha pretty creative right? But it got the point across and now he is praying :)
this week we also started playing this game where everyone in my district picks a piece of paper and on one of them the word "native" is written on it and that person has to speak pure spanish for the next 2 days. But everyone else is trying to convince everyone that they are the native because we vote at the end of the 2 days on who we think the native is. So anyways that probably doesn't make any sense at all... but basically i wasn't the native and lasted about 3 hours until i lost it and was speaking english again. So then i tried to win people's votes over by doing cool things... haha i only won one vote, but it was very well earned because i stuffed a whole banana in my mouth at dinner. hahaha
Here are some answers to some questions i got:
Do you do everything on the west campus?
-most everything i do on west campus. the only time we go to main campus is for devotionals on Sunday and Tuesday, and if you want you can go on your Pday! But west is definitely better, except for the food haha
Where is choir? like is there one for the west mtc and one for the east mtc or do you combine?
-choir is here on sunday but on Tuesday is when we actually sing for the devotional so then on tuesday we go ever to main campus and we combine with the choir there and we all sing together.
So how is spanish going this week?
-my spanish is slowly coming... Haha it's sometimes hard to see your progression here since you learn new stuff all the time so your mind is constantly trying to comprehend what is going on. but i can really see myself improving!
Do you just memorize words and phrases or do you have classes on phonics and such?
-Both. We have 3 blocks of class like i said last week and one is just for like personal, companion and language study and then the other two are spent with teacher here. So during my language study time alone i work on memorizing words and phrases for the next lesson i have and then in class we learn all the grammar and such.
How do you practice it?
I try to speak as much spanish as possible which is really hard. But also a huge practice is teaching the lessons and we have the program called TALL that we use to help us practice speaking and stuff. Another thing that i've been doing to work on
Are you praying silently yourself in your own prayers in spanish?
-Yes. well kinda. Haha i say as much as i can in spanish. We pray so much here and any pray that i say in front of people or in class i say purely in spanish. But every night from 10:15 to 10:30 is our personal devotional with Heavenly Father and that i usually do in English :) haha.
In your class time do they just work on spanish preach my gospel or what do they do?
-We spend lots of time in preach my gospel and always in spanish. We also have like legit Spanish classes where the teach us things that you'd learn in like school.
Everyone kept telling you the best thing you could do was to really know preach my gospel, but what do you think?
YES YES YES. The one thing i keep hearing is that the gospel is first, language is second. so preach my gospel is definitely part of the gospel that i'm trying to study as much as i can of.
Was there really hangers everywhere or what?
hahaha nope. none. so most of my clothes are folded in my closet. I double all my skirts on hangers and then with the few extra one i hung my dress from. hahaha i'm getting very creative here.
Are you in an apartment with 6 girls?
4 :) and they are honestly the best. We have sooo much fun, probably too much fun sometimes. Last night me and Hermana van Overbeek were getting up in each other faces and being all dumb and so i was like "okay bring it" so we went out into the living room and looked at each other like we were going to start like fighting and then both of us just like broke out dancing. but like not just any dancing. Straight up Irish dancing. Hahaha don't ask me how it happened but it did. haha they are all so much fun and i love them!
At mealtimes do they just have like one or two hot meal choices and then cold choices also, or just one thing to eat? I always thought it must be like chuck a rama with food everywhere, but I don't think so anymore.
Haha yes exactly. We have like 2 choices out, and then there is always fruit, salad and cold cereal. We went to main campus and let me tell ya, there cafeteria is like chuch a rama haha it was incredible.
So i was told that on Sunday mornings they don't feed you so that everyone can go to church, is that true? If so do you just grab extra food for the next day?
hahaha no they feed us on Sunday mornings. Haha we would all be way to grumpy if they didn't.
Who have you had as speakers for devotional and other things?
No one like huge yet. We had Stanley Ellis of the seventy last time and i can't really remember any other names. Haha but they have all been incredible and i learn a ton.
Did you get to go to the temple again this week?
Yep this morning :) i love the temple!
How is your elephant?
gone.. ;) haha we all ate that thing "one bite at a time :)
And here are some other answers to other questions i have been asked:
My district has 11 people in it, 4 of us hermanas (the ones i live with) then 7 Elders, one companionship being a trio. They are literally some of the funniest people i've ever met. I feel so blessed and lucky to have them as my district. We are all way close and have the time of our lives here :) my zone has 2 districts in it and one of them is leaving this week and we are all so sad to see them go :(
I now have 2 teachers and so they each come for one of the blocks and everything is in spanish. They are great though and so inspiring to me :) haha my favorite part of the day is... well honestly i love my whole day, but i LOVE gym time. haha
Well i love everyone so much! thank you all for the support. It honestly means so much, and it's the best feeling getting mail :) I feel so blessed to have so many great people in my life :)
Love you all!!
Love: Hermana Peters :)
Here are some pictures :)
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