Holy moly!!! I can't believe it'll be five weeks on wednesday. Time flies but it at the same time it seriously feels like I've been here my entire life. If I didn't have pictures of home and a slight memory I'd almost be sure I was born here. jaja but I love it. Each week gets better.
Real quick. All the shirts here are long sleeve so what should I do? Can I return these shirts? I've only worn them twice but I definitely need new ones. I've actually lost weight here which is crazy so even my pants are looking big on me now. So let me know soon what I should do.
Alright! I hope father's day was awesome!! Did you get my letter and the pictures in the mail? The MTC has been getting really great, sometimes it definitely is not fun but you have to keep a good attitude so you can have the spirit more. That's one thing I'm really learning right now is how to rely on the spirit. Especially since we've started teaching all our lessons in spanish. It was super rough and frustrating at first but I'm starting to learn how to just rely on the spirit and teach to investigators needs so the spirit will be able to work through my lack of language skills. But it's still crazy how much spanish I've already learned here! In class our teachers pretty much only talk in spanish and we're all almost to the point where we can understand everything they're saying. The hard part is just coming up with a response. All the rules of conjugations and sentence structure is hard but it'll come. I'm not too worried. It's a very humbling experience especially for me because I always liked to rely on my own brain, but now I have to rely just on the spirit and the Lord. I have to be careful all the time to not think or do or say anything that will make the spirit leave and I think that's a really good lesson to learn in life. But speaking of teaching.. The family we were supposed to teach wednesday didn't show up. The mom did because she's like the "investigator" hired by the TRC, but she told us that her children didn't want to. It was hard to understand fully beacuse her spanish was so fast, but from what we got her children are awesome!!! (They play harp and cello, volunteer at hospitals and with handicap children, they are smart and do well in school and a bunch of other things!!!) but just aren't interested in religion. I think just because they don't think its important. They have so many priorities straight and I think would accept everything if they could feel the spirit and the love from the gospel. It's hard though for Claudia (the mom) because her english isn't great, but her children's spanish isn't great. So they kind of have a language barrier. So we tried telling her that the best thing would just be an example and to share her testimony with them as best she could. She said she'd still try to bring them every week so pray for that!! It'd be a great oppurtunity and it would make her family so much happier!
So what else? OH! so this week is the training of like 116 new mission presidents here at the MTC. They've shut off half of the main building and cafeteria for them and all the apostles and the first presidency will be here this week!!!! Crazy!!!! We're having a special devotional Friday night. We're all banking on the prophet talking. jaja it would be amazing but probably not. It'll be cool though just knowing that they are all in the same building even though we can't see them. Who knows mabye we will!!
Not much new here though. Just learning A LOT!!! Every experience here makes you learn something and every day before I fall asleep it takes like 20 minutes just because I think so much. But it's so awesome! You have to appreciate the MTC especially if you're going to Mexico. Two elders in our building have been here for 17 WEEKS!!!!!!!!!! and just barely got transferred. Visas just aren't working at all and I guess there are like 60 elders who have been here over their scheduled time still waiting on visas. So we're probably going to be here for a while. I hope not, but we're going to Mexico. That's the joke here. "Where are you going?", "Oh Mexico..." , "Ouch, so how many weeks are you SUPPOSED to have left?". jaja ya it's sad but its ok. All in the Lord's time. It'll be nice in a way though because if we get delayed long enough we won't have to show up in Hermosillo in the middle of summer. I've heard from 6! ya 6!!! different people how insanely hot Hermosillo is. And 4 of those people are from Mexico. One teacher said you should actually pray to get delayed because it sometimes gets up to 130 during the summer. I'm pretty sure you can cook food at that temperature. jaja so either way: if I get my visa or not I'll be happy.
Summer sure sounds fun at home! sorry everything is breaking though... That's no good but we have lived there for like 8 years or something so it kinda makes sense. I haven't seen Robbie a lot here. I talked to him about 2 weeks ago and I haven't seen him since. Trek sounded great though. Thanks for telling me about the testimony meeting. Sorry to hear about the lab too. For some reason it's taken me till now to realize how important the gospel is, but it's amazing. I wish I would've been a better example of that when I worked there. Without living the gospel of Jesus Christ and without living with the spirit, life just isn't going to be great. I'm so excited to go share that with people and see it change their lives!! Hopefully i'll eventually get a visa so i can do that. jaja but it really is great though.
But how is everything else?? what have you guys been up to? Last night for the closing hymn after the fireside they played a clip of MOTAB from I think music and the spoken word. There was a close up of mom but only the left side of her hair. Not even the face. Super bummer. jaja but its all good. I hope they do it again so I can see you!
Speaking of music tomorrow Elder Mobley and I are trying out for a special musical number for Friday's devotional. We're really hoping we make it so we can be right up there next to all the apostles. It'd be crazy awesome!
Well that's pretty much it I think. Life's great!!! Love you guys!
Elder Florence
