Buenas Dis familia!
On the 4th of July I officially reached my 6th month mark on being out on my mission. On Saturday I wrote in my journal and had time to reflect on my mission so far. Time has gone by so incredibly fast for me, it feels like it was the week before my mission and I didn't know what to do with myself, that early morning I said goodbye to you guys at the airport, my first week at the CCM, my last night at the CCM and telling my district goodbye, the day where Hmn Tchan Elder Goodman and I wandered around the Denver airport trying to find our mission president, sitting in my first lesson in Spanish thinking what have I done- they didn't teach me Spanish in the CCM, last transfer when I learned some life changing lessons, up to 2 weeks ago where I got the call to train a brand new missionary. As you can see A LOT can happen in 6 months and I'm thankful for all of the experiences I've had so far, even the happy, scary, sad, and pure heart-felt joy ones. All of them! Because those are all what the "mission experience" is about. Change. It's not easy but in that best 2 years or 18 months that's when you find yourself by loosing yourself in the service of the Lord. Yesterday I read a talk by Boyd K. Packer and I loved how he said that "this mission is not yours. It's the Lords mission. You are here to be his servant and to carry out his work for him." And what I love most about that is that I'm able to walk shoulder to shoulder with Jesus Christ who won't ever leave me and who knows how I'm feeling every single day. Because he's been through it before. He knows how it feels and he knows my heart. That's why I love being a representative of Jesus Christ. I can't imagine being any where else right now- I'm so excited for Natasha and Truman to experience the mission in a few years. It's not easy but it's worth it.
So this week was interesting! It was a bit slower than usual workwise, probably because of the holiday's. During the middle of the week I had the thought to change something up a bit... in our area book we have a section of potentials where missionaries have contacted a person in the past and got there contact info but the people have never been taught lessons before. I had the impression Thursday to start with area 1 and just go down the list of names. So my comp and I drove to everyone's house and if I had been there more than 3 times but either they weren't interested or ever home we put a star next to their name and moved to the next person. We didn't have any set lessons that day so we made a ton of progress in the area book doing that. Since I've been in the area for 6 months I know/have tried pretty much all of the potentials so I wanted to move on and find new people if the older potentials weren't interested. After doing that my HMN and I decided to re-write the potential sheet Saturday evening while we were home for the 4th. Last Sunday I was asked to give a training in our district meeting for Wednesday so all week I was preparing for it. The topic for my training was "bearing testimony frequently" and I had 40 min to do that. I shared personal experiences, we did some role-play's and at the end I asked a few of the elders to share their testimonies on why they are serving missions. I got a sly smile from elder Goodman after I had asked him to share his testimony haha It's fun having him and HMN Tchan in the same mission. It went great and Elder Leanardus said he could feel the spirit during my training so I was pleased. Earlier before district meeting we had a zone breakfast that the stake high council put on for us so I ate some yummy fruit for breakfast. After that Hermana and I brought our studies outside under the pavilion and studied personal, comp, language and training. It was fun to study out in the sun and get a tan. I have the official missionary tan goin on now- the watch tan on my wrist and the sock tan on my feet to I have white toes now! It's beautiful let me tell ya. Since we had district meeting right after that the elders brought us some L&L Barbeque for lunch- my new favorite lunch ever! It was a great day.
Side note- last week we had the president over the mission vehicles come from Salt Lake City to give us a training on Twi's They are now installed in all of the car's in our mission. It's a square box device installed in our wind shield and it tracks our speed so if we go over the 5 mile buffer it tells us "slown down". It's a great device for safety but I really feel like I have "big brother" watching over me everyday now...lol
This Sunday at church they talked about how the U.S. is allowing gay marriage now... interesting topic/news to find out while your on your mission.
HIGHLIGHT of my week. So our less-active gave us money to eat out so my HMN and I went to Mc Donalds on Friday and while I was eating my southwest spicy chicken salad I glanced at the t.v. and guess what was on. The Oriley Factor! I sat there and laughed to myself and had a nice moment to ponder about dad and if he's still watching it every night. haha
On the 4th of July (the day as a whole was extremely slow) no one was home and 60mi later we taught no lessons. On the bright side- since all missionaries had to go home at 6, my Hermana and I went out to Applebee's for dinner and I treated myself to my favorite oriental grilled chicken salad. My Hermana and I took some cute pictures together that I'll send you next pday (my camera is in the car). After that to celebrate my 6 months my HMN and I went to walmart and bought some coconut soy ice cream and some strawberries to go on top. It's both of our new favorite ice cream- so yummy! I bought some 10lb weights and my hmn bought a pull-up bar for our work outs. Once we got home we worked out (hardest I have since I left home) and then ate some ice cream and we updated the area book and re-wrote our information on our massive white board. It was a super fun way to spend the 4th of July.
This week I got to know my Hermana better. She used to be heaver and she lost a ton of weight so she is really into counting calories and eating healthy and working out. It's funny because she said that she'll teach me how to count calories and I told her that I would teach her new workouts. Combined we are going to get into shape! Who says you can't eat healthy, workout and be a missionary? We don't want to be frumpy sister missionaries. We both have measuring cups to measure out our food and some new workout equipment to get healthy with. It's so nice to have a comp that I have some things in common with. The funny thing is- the night of the 4th after we had worked out and HMN used her new pull up bar the elders had told her that she can't use it because elders got pull up bars banned from the mission because they broke too many members/apartments doorframes. She was so sad lol She can still use it to do other workouts just on the ground. Today our arms hurt so bad! Good thing I have a new suitcase to pack my weights around if I ever leave D3. (:
Well that's about it for this week's email to you guys. The work is going great and this week I'm planning on extending the bap invite to Anthony morales again- now that he's done with his knee surgery. Wish me luck!
Hermana Angell