This week has been oh so good. The time is crazy. I feel like I was just writing.
I forgot to say somethings last week so I´ll also be squeezing those in here too.
To start I´ll answer my fathers question about the food here. No there´s no café rio and I´m pretty sad about that. They have a lot of corn products, meat and strange desserts. Our second week here my roomies and I were really missing veggies, I totally didn´t appreciate our garden at home while I had it. We had had a rough day and were starting to feel sick, low in behold a million veggies were served at dinner that day. Heavenly Father loves His children. #blessins
The comedor is the place to be man. First off cause it´s a break from classes, second because our BFF works there. His name is J (but the j is like an h cuz of Spanish, ya know). He is the happiest person I´ve ever met. He´s a return missionary and his goal is to memorize all of the missionaries name. We asked him why he´s so happy all the time and he said "well, my mission president said you can be only one thing: happy or sad. and I chose happy." A couple days later he told us his girlfriend broke up with him and when we responding with saying she must be crazy he said "No, she´s nice. I´ll be her friend. I´m happy!" We all have something to learn from J.
The people here are so incredible. The workers, the teachers, everybody. They all have a genuine spirit and love for the CCM. We have a good time here. Yesterday my night teacher had us all play signs, the game, and if you lost you had to memorize a scripture in Spanish. Most intense game of signs I´ve played (it´s a good thing one of our district goals for the week was to memorize 3 scriptures anyway).
The pressure is on to learn español. This week is SOLO ESPAÑOL! If we say a word in English during class we´re forced to either do squats or push-ups. So yesterday was our first day, after our morning class we went to lunch and we were (or at least I was) struggling to keep up the Spanish. You might have thought my Spanish-English dictionary was glued to my hand. We were talking about Mexico's strange vitamin D milk and I wanted to say that my little brother loves vitamin D milk but instead I said "Mi menjor hermano mucho gusto vitamina D leche". <---- "nice to meet you milk" ???Close, but not quite. Yikes, wish me luck.
This week I really began studying more on Joseph Smith, I mean I guess he´s kind of important to a missionaries message right? So the girls and I went to one of the building and looked at these beautiful painting of Christ and Joseph Smith by the artist Liz Lemon i think, (LOOK HER UP). Anyway, we just bawled. I´ve been reading Joseph Smith History too and pretty much cry every night, (GO READ IT). So you have to know, every Sunday we get to watch a film like the Testaments or something so we were just saying smalls prayers it would be The Restoration. Guess what?? The Restoration played that night. We just bawled. Heavenly Father loves His children.
This Sunday was also fast Sunday due to General Conference next week (who´s excited?! yay). We started our fast on Saturday after lunch and broke our fast Sunday at lunch. It was the easiest it´s ever been fasting and umm testimony meeting in Spanish? INCREDIBLE! We can´t say all that much so everything said were the simple truths, that´s how testimony should be. That´s how we need to teach. I think that might be a reason I got called speaking Spanish. If I was called English speaking I would be all over the place, people be like... uhh?
FUNFACTS about our Sunday. After sacrament meeting I watched a bird die right in front of me. He flew into a window 3 feet from us Hermanas... I cried. It was an emotional day, ok? Also, you know how usually you see balloons float away and never see them come back down? Well we saw one, floating down. IDK how.
The spirit in the CMM is sooo strong! My companion and I have been trying to push ourselves in our lessons. Usually we´d write everything in English then translate everything in Español and read straight from our papers. Now we´re only using note cards with key points and Spanish words we don´t know. Scary! Our last lesson was with Alejandro (aka our morning teacher hermano Vargas). His character is a young married guy with a baby, his wife is a member, he has Catholic background but no strong beliefs. His mom also passed away when he was young. So we taught him about the Resurrection and eternal families. We started basic but he began asking many questions and was confused about why trying to pray and read felt hard for him and why his life would be hard if God really wanted to live with him again. My companion was throwin out analogies and I was throwing out personal experiences, IN SPANISH. I mean of course it was probably the worst grammar you´ve ever heard of but THE SPIRIT WAS THE MESSAGE. I knew then of the deepest love I will feel for God´s children in Chile. He wants to live with His children again, He wants them to know of the most wonderful gift of all, the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We asked Alejandro to say the closing pray (may I remind you he is our teacher) and while he prayed he cried! The investigators we teach aren´t real, but the gospel is.
My other teacher, Hermano Polo, made me cry too, surprise! This teacher is such a goofball, always trying to understand English and stealing our pens but none the less he teaches us so much. Last week he was talking about how important what we´re doing is and he told us of his conversion story. He was 18 and his family were strong Catholics. He hide his Book of Mormon in a backpack with a beer logo on it. When he was finally baptized he worked for 5 years to help convert his family and while he was on his mission his father was finally baptized. His 18 year old self reminded me so much as his first character we taught and I realized maybe I could help some kind of difference like that in a family. I took it for granted everyday the blessing of being raised in the beautiful gospel. Hermano Polo will be going to General Conference this weekend in Salt Lake, he´ll be gone for 2 week! We will miss him more than life. But if any of you go up plz give him a hug for me (and maybe some conference tickets). Last night was his last night with us for 2 weeks so he shared a scripture in John 15. He then said "I work here because I want to be a missionary all my life".
Now being out here I realize what a difference we really can make. I had so many opportunities to share the gospel in my life but didn´t take them for fear of being told I was wrong or people not accepting something I hold so dear. But that´s why we should share the gospel! Because it is so dear! I know it´s true and it blessing peoples lives, so why should I think they´ll immediately turn it away?
I you love me go read St. John 15. God has chosen us, He´s called us as friends. He blesses us because HE LOVES US, we should serve Him because we LOVE HIM! Remember if things are hard, they were hard for him first. and verse 27?? soo good. (like a cliff hanger... so you have to go read it now?)
Love you all. Thank you for your prayers. I know the missionaries around the world truly are blessed everyday. Even the trails are good for us (;
xoxo
Hermana Meacham
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