Viva Mexico

¡Buenos Días! This week was awesome. A lot of simple, but good things happened and I really had a lot of fun! Actually, this week started off on a bad note. Thursday morning when we got to our class we found out that one of the elders in our district went home. He had left late the night before. I don´t know what is going on in his life, but we were all really sad. It has been different without him because we have all gotten to be such good friends. :( All we can do is pray for him right now! Anyways, other than that, it was awesome! Some hermanas moved into our casa and now Hermana Ficklin and I have roommates. They are a week behind us but had to move because there were problems with the water in their casa. There names are Hermana Bennett and Whitmore. They are super nice and it is actually really fun having them there! Hermana Whitmore went to China for five months to teach English before she came here and so that has been really fun to hear about. I had some good experiences with my investigators and the scriptures too. Nothing crazy happened, but I got to see more of how the Spirit works in small and simple ways. One thing I´ll share.. We got our investigator Amanda to be baptized, but because she has a boyfriend that she lives with, we had to tell her that she needs to get married or move out. So, we were a little nervous to talk about that with her. Keep in mind this is in Spanish too so our word choice is extremely limited. Hermana Ficklin and I prayed about it and prepared the best we could. We ended up having a wonderful lesson. It was SO good! I guess I just keep learning again and again that when you listen to the Spirit, it works out. She has to talk to her boyfriend, obviously, but she wants to get married! This week I also had the opportunity to talk to Hermano Hardy one on one. It was so good. I am so grateful for both him and Hermana Valdez because they care so much about us and really want to do all they can to help us be the best missionaries possible! Hermano Hardy gave me some much needed encouragement! Just a sidenote, he actually played rugby at Highland when he was in highschool... So Forever Strong is kind of his life! Anyways, he is awesome and always knows exactly what to tell us. Our district has done a much better job at being dilligent this week too. It´s tough when you want to study hard but everyone is talking and getting distracted. This week was way better though. We decided that we should pray before every study hour and I think that has helped a lot! I also think the reality that we are going to be in the field in 2 weeks has started to sink in more and that has helped as well haha... One thing this week that us four Hermana in the district decided to do was have an English fast. Monday we did not speak english at all- unless we said ¿Cómo se dice __? (How do you say__) if we absolutely didn´t know the word... I also had coaching with Hermano Hardy that nigh which was in English... but other than that solomente español. It was kind difficult, but it was fun and since we all did it together that helped! During gym time this week I played soccer a few times. It was SO fun! There is just something about playing fútbol in Mexico. :) Also, I told you last week that this week was Mexico´s Independence Day. Craziness. We basically had a fiesta Saturday night. My pictures didn´t turn out too good, but we all gathered in the gym and there were dancers and singers, and a cool video about Mexico. It was a fiesta. haha, all the natives were going insane. Then, Sunday night they had us stay up and go to the gym again to watch a live broadcast of the President of Mexico address the nation. He said some things that I didn´t understand and then he said the names of people in Mexican history that contributed to helping them gain their independence and then we all shouted ¡Viva! after each name. Pretty cool! Although I was not happy because I was sooo tired and didn´t get to bed til probably midnight. Haha, it is so funny how late that is now. But, usually I am asleep by 10:40. Everything is coming along! I am really excited for when I am actually good at Spanish, but I am grateful for the progress I have made so far. Mom, you asked me if with what I know now in Spanish if I would be able to speak to the Mexicans at Snoasis... Eh, I really don´t know. I´m sure it would have been better, but I can´t remember what they said now so who knows! Haha and yeah if you are saying "I don´t speak" you say No hablo and if you are saying "you don´t speak" you would say no hable I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week! :)