Week 4- "Lo siento, por su tiempo! Me gusta comer.... hotdogs!"

Dearest Familia,

 

What to say about this week? It has been crazy. Full of spiritual growth and a crazy amount of learning. Sometimes I have to take a step back and look at things from the outside so that i can see the improvements that have actually been made. This whole week has been a crazy week of faith. I swear everywhere i turn im learning something new. I think the Lord is trying to tell me something, what say you? I had this crazy experience during early morning study. I was just sitting there and I prayed to know what to study and what i needed that day, and this overwhelming feeling came over me to turn to Alma 32. That whole chapter is on faith, it was perfect!!!!!

 

My language skills havent gotten that much better but every once in a while ill just spit out something and im like "donde en el mundo did that come from?!" So thats pretty cool. We have this program called TALL to help us study but its been down for a week and it finally came up yesterday and everyone was freaking out because it is so awesome!! Seriously though we have language study right after TALL time and so this week has been a three hour a day language study and do you know how hard it is to concentrate for that long on a language that makes no sense. Well, its hard!!!

 

We play soccer pretty much every day and i realize why i gave up on soccer so early in life.. there really is no hope for me and that sport. It doesnt really help that we play with natives and they are naturals and look like they are dancing around with the ball... its crazy but sooo fun! OH! also i love the attitude the natives have towards games. They are all lets fit as many people on this court as we can! when its just nortes (north americans) they are all lets split up into teams and we´ll swith out when we get a goal... so lame! But when the natives are playing it is a free for all!!! So FUN!

 

Yesterday, we have a crazy day! our whole schedule is switched around. we have super early breakfast and gym, then class, then lunch and service, then class, TRC, class, dinner, language.BUT i love service! it is so fun. we go to this secret laundry room and fold sheets. Sounds lame but as missionaries, we have the ability to make anything fun! So we have very friendly ....contests, because "competition" is not allowed at the MTC, to see who can fold sheets the fastest (of coarse i win every time, but not really because there is no winning and losing). Anywho, its fun. Yesterdays TRC was so amazing. Hermana Bennett and I finally had a good lesson! Sure it was with other missionaries and sure it was mostly in english, BUT it was amazing. We had the spirit with us and we were making sense. We both felt awesome!

 

OH MY WORD! I cant believe i almost forgot to tell you! Our "investigator" decided that she didnt really want to hear our message anymore so she shut the door on us! i didnt even know that was allowed at the MTC! arent they supposed to be building up self esteem?? Well anyways now we can either try to get her to let us in again or we can just get an new investigator... WE have no idea what we are going to do. I feel like our situation is teaching the whole district though. we can all learn from this!

 

My funny thing for this week is the title. Mi compañera made up that song one day while she was getting ready for bed... so its been our theme for the week! Its crazy the things we come up with to entertain ourselves here!

 

I love you all!! I hope that you all have a great week!

 

Con amor,

 

Hermana Whitmore

  There is a scandelously clad man right outside the walls of the MTC! Also pictured is the 15 foot high wall keeping us from escaping the convent.

 I may or may not have sent a picture of this already.. but DAD this is me by that sign that you said i would never see!!! QUE PASO?

this is the panic circle... they are not very stratigically placed because if there really ever was an earthquake... we would die from falling trees and light poles...

Week 3

Hey Family,

 

This week has been pretty crazy. The whole country has been going loco because of independence day! Every night there are fireworks and gunshots and sirens... pretty crazy. So on Saturday Presidente Pratt put together an independence day program for all the missionaries. We gathered in the Gym and watched cultural dancing and fireworks (yes inside) and a movie on Mexican history. That was really fun, especially because we sat by the natives and they were going crazy! The next night, Sunday, was the "Grita", which is a shout for the independence of Mexico. The best part, or worst part (depending on how you look at it) was that the "Grita" was at 11:00 PM so we were out way past bed time. Which will never happen again with permission from the mission president. Anywho, that was crazy because the Presidente of Mexico would read "Viva (a name of a famous guy)" then the whole country would shout "VIVA!". Pretty much it was awesome. Before the program started, the security came in and warned us to get home as soon as possible afterwards because of all the bullets that would be flying through the air. Dont worry, i didnt get hit with anything.

 

So that was probably the most exciting part of my week, its been pretty hard. We teach our investigators everyday and pretty much we are getting no where with them. Ive realized that there are 4 parts to learning a language... 1. Be able to understand what people are saying. 2. have the words to respond 3. be able to write it. 4 ( and this is the hardest one) relearn the parts of english so you can understand what the teaching books are talking about.

 

OH! also this week, we got kicked out of our house so that was fun. We came home for gym one day and there was a sign that said the bathrooms were unsafe so everyone gets to move to a casa around the corner. We have 2 new roommates and they are super cute. I felt bad though because we totally killed the schedule they had. They havent had roommates and they have been here for 4 weeks!

 

Um.... One of my teachers is actually studying chinese history, and wants to study in none other then NANJING! So I got to talk to him about that, and it was pretty fun :)

 

I got to go to the temple today, and i actually understood some of it this time. It was really fun!

 

Love you all.

 

I love being missionary and someday I will actually understand the people im teaching instead of just loving them!

 

Hermana Whitmore

The hermanas and i with one of the dancers at the independencia celebracion!

 This one is just me being artistic!! :) Woot

  it rains everyday here... Yes everyday! And dad will appreciate this... my umbrella totally broke the first week... just like he said it would!

Week 2

Dear Familia,

 

Im glad you shaped  up and all send me letters :) I really appriecieate it even if i dont ahve as much time to write you! The plan was to come print everything out so I could write back later becauase pday is from 8-5 so we can split up our computer time thoughout the day and it is all on the honor system that you use only an hour. ´pretty much all the elders in our district fail at that... But im working on obeidience with exactness (even if I can{t spell it). But yeah i ran around trying to find a printer that worked to no avail so that wasted like 20 minutes of my time. Whatevs.

 

So this week has been pretty amazing, so many amazing talks and learning so much. Our maestra gave us the smack down and told us to shape up. The day after that happened another class from our branch cam in and their teacher apologized for the example that they had been for us because they were not at the point they shoud be after 6 weeks. It was a very powerful experience of the atonement and a great lesson for everyone in our branch.

 

Whatelse what else? oh mom! coconut oil really can be used for everything. I used it on my extremely squeeky closet door and the squeeks went away but now there is this creepy like ticking that comes from the offset of the hinges. So i guess the living arrangments are pretty strange i might have told you about them in the last letter but we live in a casa with 5 rooms and 4 girls to a room but it is suprisingly roomy. We have way more room then we would at Provo, and i lot more freedom too. I think the elders dont really understand that because they have never lived away from home and in a college dorm...

 

We finished teaching Martin and he actually became our teacher. Super weird to get use to that but for some reason i can understand his spanish now and not when we were teaching him... i think he slurred his words on purpose! We also started teaching a "new investigator" who is really our other teacher and she is soooo har dto teach but its definitely a step up from martin!!! but in our lesson with Luz i was actually understanding her and responding! it felt so good. it is crazy to think how much ive learned in 13 days.

 

So sunday is always funday and we have devos all day and RS and Sacraments.. all that good stuff. in Sacrament meeting we are all assigned a topic to be prepared for and then its like a raffel almost to see who will talk and they dont tell you until they announce it in sacrament!! They say its training for the real mission which freaks me out a bit but i guess thats one of those things i have to accept. Anywho, i survived this weeks reaping and lived to speak anouther week.

 

We listened to the most amazing devo from president holland... i tried to look it up to see if you could watch it from LDS. org but alas i couldn{t find it. It was an MTC devo given in January and it was so powerful about how if you only come back with one convert it better be yourself! Amazing.. try to find it if you can. especially Kevin.

 

I love youall!!! Love Herm. Dubs

 

OH my word!! how could i forget?? mi companera toally got bitten by a radioactive spider... ok not really but a spider yes. her whole elbow swelled up and i even picked a pincer thing out of it... SO cool!!!

Week Numero Uno

Dearest Familia,

 

Oh how i miss you!!! the work here is so hard, but i know it will be worth it in the end. So of coarse i got here late and I have felt behind ever since. But you know how I was joking around about my companion being the girl that I met at the airport... yeah nope thats totally my companion! She is amazing and I love her to death, her name is Hermana Bennett and she is from Vegas. My district is so awesome: There are 8 elders and 4 hermanas, we are all going to the same mission expect the other 2 hermanas. Yeah, Im the oldest and I feel super old! All the elders are 18 years old and just barely graduated from high school! It is so sad to see them be homesick because none of them have been away from home before. I mean I have homesickness pretty bad and Ive lived in another country, I cant even imagine what they are feeling.

 

The MTC here is called el CCM and the cool thing is that everyone here is learning spanish so everyone is working on it all the time, so we get lots of practice!

They seriously throw you into the deep end here-no joke! On Thursday we taught our first "investigator"- Martin. Yeah, he only speaks spanish... but not really because his real name is Hermano Wolfe and we saw him at breakfast!!!! He plays this investigator that he had to teach and he is all " i don{t know if i believe in God, i dont want to pray for you, I dont have faith, god cant love me because ive done to many bad things." It is seriously so hard, we go in there and I can feel the spirit but I don{t have the words to explain what we believe. I just have to keep telling myself that this is only this first week here and to give myself time, just because missionaries are blessed with the gift of tongues (el don de linguas) it doesnt mean I can become bilingual overnight.

 

Alright, what else? what else? I got a calling in my districto to keep all 4 of us in check, its pretty easy because no one is too crazy!! Yesterday I like broke down because i was not understanding spanish and i was all homesick and it was awful, so during language study me and a couple elders had races on the whiteboard to memorize words and it helped so much!!  Today we got to go to the templo en el ciudad de mexico. It was so nice to feel peaceful and just stop thinking about how hard the next 18 months are going to be. We listened to the whole thing in spanish so its a good thing ive gone enough times to know what was going on. It was so beautiful and it was amazing to be there with so many missionaries.

 

The food here really is not too bad. It is strange sometimes but i havent gotten sick and for the super picky people they have pb and nuttella and bread, fruitloops and frosted flakes. Every once in a while i indulge and get some cereal but it never keep you satisfied because we go all day! that part is kind of weird, i thought it would be harder because i was a super-bum before i left but the 6:30 to 10:30 hasnt been bad at all! All those early morning swim choir and seminary are finally paying off because im the only one in my room to get up in the morning when the alarm goes off! So my days pretty much go like this: 6;:30 wake up and get ready, 7 personal study, 7:30 breakfast 8-12 language, personal and companionship study, 12 lunch, 12:30 more studying 4:00 teach martin 4:30 freakout because i can{t understand spanish 6:00 dinner 6:30 language study 7:15 more language study 9:30 plan and get ready for bed! whew. and that is everyday!!! Sunday are nice though because they do devos and church and movie night.

 I love you all immensly like so much its not even funny :)

 

 Hermana Whitmore

 

P.S. the keyboards here are different so thats why all my punctuation is awful.

 

 Mi districto at el temle

 My little hermanos in my district. They are so amazing and cute and spiritual!

Me and Hermana Bennett