Nov. 10, 2015
To Family and Friends,
I´m sure most of you heard about my long day at the airport but after I finally got out of the airport in Mexico City, I saw a neon sign for me...I felt pretty special. There were only latinos there and the first thing he said to me was habla espanol and i said si :). The guy needed to see that my passport had a valid temporary visa first and he noticed that it only had 30 days. He said that it was fine, but hopefully it will be. Anyway there was only one other missionary that rode to the CCM with me and her name is hermana R. I thought she didn’t know English at first because her dad is from Peru, but her mom is from idaho. She actually went to BYU and I discovered that she was going to the Texas McAllen mission. We were making jokes in the car with the hermanos who picked us up and now everytime they see Hermana R. and I they call us Taquitos because Hermana R. said something about taquitos.
By the way, Hermana R. and I are companions now, and we were overjoyed. She is the best companion ever!! And she took 4 years of Spanish in high school and even one year in BYU. I bet we passed each other all the time at BYU without even noticing, but we always talk in Spanish together and we both love to be active, and she is really funny. She helps me with my pronunciation, and I help her with her grammar and vocabulary.
At first, we both thought we were in the wrong district because we were learning basic things in Spanish, and we know Spanish pretty well in comparison to the rest of our class, but then we asked our teacher Hermana Alonso and she said that most of the class is intermediate so I guess I’m in the right class. I’m just not learning a lot in spanish class. But I have my ways to learn Spanish. For example, we talk to each other mostly in Spanish, we teach lessons in Spanish, and most of the time we eat with the latinos. I love the Latinos! Also, every time i write in my journal now, I write in spanish and i don’t even catch myself until after I wrote it.
Our first lesson con Hermana R. y Hermano H. was okay...our Spanish was really good, but we didn’t really teach the lesson that well. The second was the opposite, but LET ME TELL YOU about the third!! When we were preparing to teach we wanted to finish up with the plan of salvation and the doctrine of Jesus Christ, but I felt that we should explain the atonement in the plan of salvation more and we should not yet teach about the doctrine of Jesus Christ, so we went with that plan. Also a teacher told us that we should address their needs more, so we mentioned in the lesson that unless they wanted to change and have a better relationship with each other, the gospel wasn’t going to help them with that. I taught the atonement and I was again impressed with my spanish. The gift of tongues is so cool!!! But it doesn’t just come out of nowhere. I have to take action. For example I have a goal of learning 25 new words every day and learning a new scripture every day and I have done those things every day so far!! But anyways back to the lesson. .After Hermana R. talked about the different degrees of glory, she asked if they would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone that had the authority of God. They basically said that they feel that this gospel is true and they would. I could not stop smiling after they said that.
The CCM has such good food!!! I don’t eat very much for breakfast and dinner usually. But for lunch, it is so good. It’s like celebration time. I usually have cereal and fruit for breakfast and salad and fruit for dinner, but for lunch it’s always different. They lay out everything. There is always soup too!!
Also, today, I played volleyball, tennis, soccer, kickball, and did yoga on my pday. It was so great to not sit for a change :)
A good scripture that I found this week was 2 Nephi 2:13. It talks about our whole purpose here on earth. I was able to share it with my district. I have felt the Spirit so strong and being on a mission is way harder and way better than I ever imagined it. I am so thankful for the knowledge I have and the testimony I have about Jesus Christ and his Atonement, the Book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith. You really need to know all these things before teaching someone else.
I have become so close with my district and my companion. It’s crazy how much all of us have changed already. I love Mexico City too...It´s always the perfect temperature, and I have the opportunity to speak spanish all the time with everyone!! I’m happy here. :))
Love You,
Hermana Findlay
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