Week 8: walking the streets of Mexico City!

7-27

This mission is real now! I couldn't love it more than I already do.

Where do I even start? aaaaah!

So. My companion is Hermana Tirado and she is from Tijuana, Mexico. She speaks suuuuper good English, but she speaks Spanish most of the time except when I don't understand something of course :) She is soooo nice, funny, obedient, organized, bold and so loving. I couldn't have asked for a better first companion. She is so perfect for me! She has everything that I need. She is such a good missionary. I live with my old companion, Hermana Crighton, and her companion Hermana Sic. Hermana Sic is from Guatemala and she doesn't speak much English. She understands a lot but doesn't speak English much. But let me tell you, she is like 4`5. She is THE CUTEST thing. She seems very conserved and shy from the pìctures but no. She is the fiestiest, sassiest, funniest person I have ever met. Hahahah she is so small but has so much power. I LOVE HER! Also, Latinos are verrrrry touchy. So she always wants to snuggle, holds our hand when we cross the street and just loves us. We all have so much fun together in our cute little Mexican apartment!

The first night in the field was crazy. We got to our apartment and kind of got settled in. Then Hermana Tirado and Hermana Sic were like "Do you want tacos?" and we were like "ok...." so we went and got tacos at like 8 at night. (it is safe....I know what you all are thinking). So to make a long story short, we ran across the busiest street downtown. We got in a taxi with like 6 people. And then we ate tacos on a street in Mexico City. I guess it doesnt sound too crazy right now, but all I was thinking that night was "what have I done....." hahaha but it was super fun. 

Meals. We eat breakfast in our apartment, usually eggs or cereal. Then we go to a members house around 2 or 3. That is the time of the main meal of the day. Soup first, meal, then dessert. Usually rice, tortillas, meat and whatever they have. Members don't have a lot but they give us soooo much! Another humbling lesson. Then at night, we usually just eat something small like a banana or granola bar before bed. I can tell you that I am probably going to come home a lot thinner :) 

So the people! I LOVE THEM. They are mostly old people, and whoever knows me knows that I LOVE OLD PEOPLE. It makes missionary work 10x better! It is hard though sometimes because a lot of them don't have teeth so it makes it 10x harder to understand them. Because Spanish..haha. But seriously I love teaching the people. Right now, I am not doing a ton of the talking just because it is still hard. But I definitely am trying my best and doing all that I can! So my investigators. Ismael. This is a husband of a member. He has been investigating the church for 12 YEARS. holy cow. anyways, he is a future bishop. i know it. seriously he LOVES the gospel. He is getting baptized next weekend! My first baptism! I'm soooo excited! He is very well-off. He has a really good job, he translates movies. Like Kung Fu Panda. He has a Mac, nice car, nice house. He is a veryyyyy good man. He said he wants to share the gospel with the people of Mexico. Such a golden investigator! I love him!

Another investigator. My first really cool experience in the field so far. We were contacting one day on a particular street and were having absolutely no success. It was discouraging. But Hermana Tirado and I have so much fun together so we are never sad or bored. Anyways, we knocked on a certain door and this old man answered. His name is Luis. He invited us in immediately. (sorry if my spelling is wrong, this computer says all of my words are wrong because they are in English..haha). We talked to him about the church and about his beliefs. He seems interested, but not like SUPER interested. Fast foward to Sunday. We were at church and were looking at the congregation and we didnt see any of our investigators. But then after Sacrament Meeting, we walked out of the chapel and there was Luis. I couldnt describe to you the feeling that I had in my heart. He had his pamphlet that we gave him when we talked to him and he was all dressed up. (as much as he could). He told us that he read the whole pamphlet and answered all of the questions in the back. He went to Sunday School and Priesthood with the men of the ward OUR WARD IS SO STRONG. I am soooo grateful! We met Luis after church at his house. He seemed so interested and already invested in the gospel. I extended my first baptism invitation to him (IN SPANISH)  and he accepted!!! Sooo exciting! 

My very first time contacting, we saw an old guy walking on the street so we started talking to him but I couldnt really understand him (no teeth). But after, Hermana Tirado told me that he wanted to marry me. So thats cool and weird.

So there was EFY and our chapel this last week. And the missionaries had to teach a class! It was soooo scary! It was in Spanish, obviously, and it was so hard. Latinos LOVE when people try to speak Spanish. I felt like a celebrity at EFY. They wanted pictures with me! Hahaha so weird. It was super fun though!

We had a meeting about the temple on Saturday with all of the Sisters in the mission. It was sooo good to see my old MTC district. Seriously we were almost crying when we saw each other again. Such a cool meeting and I am so lucky that I have the chance to work at the temple!

I love Mexico and the culture! I love the people! I love everything about it and I knew I would. But seriously. I am so humbled to be here. For everyone that is reading this, think about all of the blessings you have. A roof over your head, food in the fridge, clean clothes, toothbrush and toothpaste, washer/dryer, bed and pillow, everything. So many people dont have even close to all of that. I walk down the streets and I am surprised. Why? Because the people are happy. There are always kids in the streets with a huge smile on their face and they come up to you and speak English to me because Im white and they know I am from America. They play sports on the streets. They help their famliy with their restaurant. They are happy with what they have! It has already been a huge lesson to me. I need to be grateful for what I have and be happy because there are so many other reasons to be happy!

I still can't believe I am in Mexico City. It just hits me sometimes. WE ALL ARE SO BLESSED. I walk down the streets and literally feel angels walking with me. I love it. It is so amazing. 

I am so happy here. I didn't imagine this week to be as good and happy as it was. I expected it to be soooo hard this week. It has been hard, but I am sooo happy and sooo lucky to be here. I will write more next week!

I love you all!

Hermana Garner

 My bedroom in my first apartment - mine is the pink one!

 The Hermanas in my apartment.

 My kitchen with Hermana Sic - I feel like a giant here!

Week 6: the field!

7-20-15
What?!?! I´m not in the CCM anymore! Soooo crazy! I am sitting in my mission president´s house right now, we finished training pretty early so we have a lot of free time right now. It is super weird to have free time and to be just sitting around talking. 

I am soooo excited to be here though. I cannot wait to teach real people and be surrounded by the Mexican culture. The day before we left, there was mexican music playing outside the walls and I was sooo happy and excited.

It was suuuuuper hard for me to say goodbye to my teachers, especially Hermana Vergara. I cried for like 3 nights in class....haha. We were sooo connected in our hearts. Seriously. I have never been like that with anyone else. She has genuinely changed my life!

I don´t have a ton of time on the computers today so I probably wont be able to write anyone else and Im so sorry! I will have a lot more time next week! 

I LOVE THE MISSION PRESIDENT AND HIS WIFE. When they picked us up at the CCM, they walked through the door and my stomach dropped. I instantly loved them. They love me and they love life. It is soooo great and I am so excited to serve with them. They are so fun and energetic! It is just what I need! They make me so excited to serve! The sad thing is that we wont be able to spend the night at their house tonight and go to transfers tomorrow...we are going with our new companions tonight and moving into our apartments tonight! It is so crazy! They are just throwing us in here!

There are a lot of Natives that came with us to the mission home from the CCM with us and I was talking to a ton of them....IN SPANISH. I can have conversations! It is crazy how far I have come. It is crazy to think that I will be teaching real lessons tomorrow and might even have a baptism this weekend. 

I couldn't be more happy to be here. I really couldn't. I love it and I love being a missionary.

I love you all!! Read the scriptures!

Hermana Garner

 My district before leaving the MTC.

Week 5: last p-day in the MTC!

7-14-15

What?? I´m almost done with the MTC?? It is so crazy to me! If this is how fast my mission is going to go, I want it to be longer! I wish that right now but in a month it is gonna be sooo much harder. I know you RM´s know what I´m talking about. 

I have been here for longer than a month. I still can´t get over that. 

A lot of great things have happened this week that I´m super excited to share! 

So while teaching lessons this week, I have messed up some spanish that has turned into some funny laughs. We were teaching about fasting and tithing to one of our teachers. And I was talking about how when we pay our tithing, it shows our sacrifice to the Lord. She thought that I was saying that we sacrifice each other for the Lord....as in we kill humans...HAHAHAHA she was like "um....what? Im not comfortable with that..." and I was confused and she knew that I didn´t know what I said and finally I understood and we were just dying laughing. Another funny story. So I was talking about how we have to "feast upon the words of Christ" and I was relating it to when we are hungry we want food and that is how it should be when we read the scriptures..right? But instead I said something along the lines of how if we have men then we want food right? "Tengo hombre" and "Tengo hambre" sound verrrrry similar. This girl in my zone that already left one time said "Yo soy Jesucristo" instead of "Yo sé Jesucristo". She said "I am Jesus Christ" instead of "I know Jesus Christ" She said the Spirit was instantly gone and they couldnt even finish the lesson because they were laughing so hard. HAHAHA so funny to think about. 

So the really fun thing about going to Mexico City on our mission is that a lot of the workers here at the CCM live in our mission! One of the chefs lives in our mission, Estaban, the nicest guy. He said he will invite us over and make a ton of yummy American food for us. He has pictures of American missionaries making crepes and pizza and stuff. I´m suuuuper excited! Also, one of the members of our branch presidency lives in our mission and says he will invite us over and stuff. His family came to Sacrament Meeting this week and he has 3 little girls. I spoke to them in Spanish and they understood! So cool! One of the little girls showed me how she can play the piano! I loooooove speaking spanish.

We have a lot of cool meetings on Sunday and one of them is with the MTC Presidency. The President was giving the lesson and he had a powerpoint to go along with it. There was a slide where the only thing on the slide was a little tiny dot. He said "oh that means I have to tell a story" hahahahah so funny. And then another time he wanted to tell another story so he skipped a bunch of slides and got to the next dot on the slide and he told another story. He is such a funny guy but also so sweet and humble. Same with his wife. Sundays are kind of hard for missionaries to stay awake because it is all meetings. Just sitting. The whole day. In these really comfortable theater seats. So on Sunday, I looked down the row (after I woke up) and our whole district was out. Everyone asleep. It is hard work here!

For our service activity this week, we made a Texas Sheet Cake! And guess who it was for? Ourselves. Pretty sweet. Estaban wanted to try the recipe so we put hairnets on and went to work. We took a picture and hopefully he will send it to you. He loves selfies so he insisted on taking one. All Latinos know the word "selfie" here...so funny!

Everybody in our district always jokes about how me and one of our teachers are going to get married. It´s pretty funny. 

This week Elder Miller pointed out that we are here in Mexico City in the CCM. There are huge walls with tons of cameras and barbed wire surrounding us. But we are serving here. It is kind of scary to think that the CCM needs that much protection with in the field we won´t have that physical protection. I know I will be protected by the Spirit!

This week Hermana Crighton and I had a very humbling week. We work super well together and we are at about the same level with Spanish. But one day, I was pretty discouraged. I felt like everybody else in my district was progressing except for me. It was pretty hard. I was waiting for Hermana Crighton to get out of the bathroom one day and I was just sitting on the floor in the hallway. I wasn´t crying or anything. But Hermana Vergara (my fav teacher) saw that something was wrong and she came and sat by me on the floor and we talked for about an hour. She is one of my favorite people and always knows what to say. She is perfect for missionaries here. But the next day, Hermana Crighton was having a hard day but with something a little different. We were supposed to be teaching Hermana Vergara (as an investigator) but Hermana Vergara just said that we could talk about what was happening instead of teaching. We shared scriptures and bore our testimonies about how Heavenly Father is always there. Every single step of the way. The next few days, Hermana Crighton and I taught the best lessons we have ever taught. Most of them we didnt have anything to read or look at, we simply spoke by the Spirit. It was soo amazing. I will never forget that simple experience!

The next email I send will be from the Mission President´s house! IN THE FIELD! I cannot WAIT to be in the field. I cannot WAIT to teach real people with real problems. I cannot WAIT to be surrounded by the Mexican culture. I already love it! Sometimes on Friday or Saturday nights, we will be walking back to our casas and there will be music playing and my heart just aches because I want to be out there. Aaahhh just typing about it makes me soo excited! 

I love being a missionary and I cannot wait to be in the field! I could have a baptism next weekend!!! aaahhhh!!

I love you all and have such a good week! Dont forget to read your scriptures and say your prayers :)

Hermana Garner

 

This is the chef, Estaban. He loves our district!

 Making texas sheet cake - our "service project" that turned out to be for us! Estaban wanted to take a "selfie" with us!

Week 4: Natives love the 4th of July too!

7-7-15

Megan’s letter is below – she is doing great! So positive and excited about everything she is learning and experiencing. And – of course a funny story or two – it just wouldn’t be Megan without those!!

Here are some explanations for some of the terms she uses that might be a bit confusing –hope this helps!

Generation – the group of missionaries that came out the same week as Megan to the training center

Fasting – we usually fast once a month and donate the money from the meals we don’t eat to help those in need. As part of our fast, we specifically pray for those we know who need help with challenges in their life.

Fast and Testimony meeting – a church meeting where we share our beliefs and experiences we’ve had that help us to live more like Jesus Christ.

Ward mission leader – A person in a congregation (we call it a ward) who helps the missionaries serving in that congregation.

We love you and so appreciate all the prayers and thoughts for Megan and all the other missionaries serving around the world. We are all blessed for their service!

Have a great week!!

Leslie

¡HOLA! 

I know I say this every week but it is still so crazy to be in my fourth week. We are the second oldest "generation" here! Our last Sunday is a week from Sunday. Craaazzzyy!! Time flies when you are learning the gospel :)

So the Fourth of July was so much better than I thought it was going to be! All of the American missionaries wore red, white and blue to show their American pride. When we walked into our classroom first thing in the morning, our teacher gave us a candy bar with American colors that said "Happy Fourth of July!" but in Spanish. They are the sweetest! Then for lunch, the staff made us this huuuuuge meal. Hamburgers. Apple pie. French fries. Watermelon. Corn on the cob. Bbq chicken. They treated us sooo well! And it was even better because we fasted from that meal on Saturday until lunch on Sunday. They are so nice to us! They are the sweetest people. By the way, that fast was the easiest 24 hour fast I have ever done in my life. The spirit was soooo strong throughout the entire thing. 

Sunday was soooo great. It was fast and testimony meeting and every single person in my branch bore their testimonies. Soo powerful.....because it was in English so it was nice. Usually, everyone in the branch/zone has to prepare a talk on a certain topic and then on Sunday they choose random people to come up and share what they prepared...and we don’t know who it will be. I haven’t been chosen yet! 4 Sundays going strong. It is probably because I play the piano every Sunday...haha I am thankful for that.

We found out last week that our morning teacher lives in our mission! He is the ward mission leader in his ward and he said he could help us teach investigators and we could tour the city with him on our p-day! I’m so excited!

So officially starting this week, we will have (on some days) a sticker on our nametag that says "solo español" which means we can only speak Spanish. Anywhere. At meals. In our room. Everywhere. It is so hard but seriously it helps so much! It helps because we are so used to gospel vocabulary that it is nice to have a normal conversation with someone with everyday words.

Our lessons have changed A TON since being here. Hermana C and I used to write out every single thing we taught. Including how to say, "Will you say the opening prayer?" and "How was your day"? Stuff like that. But now we barely have anything written down. I think last week we taught two lessons with nothing. We weren’t holding anything and we didn’t have anything to read. It just shows how far we have come and are coming! It is so encouraging when you can explain 5 or 6 principles of the gospel with nothing to look at......in a different language.

I seriously think I have the best district. We are all best friends already. We are so lucky we are going to the same mission and we don’t have to leave each other after the MTC. We are already looking forward to Thanksgiving at the mission president’s house to catch up. Every night we walk home and ask each other about our life dreams and goals and what we want to accomplish in this life. Seriously sooo uplifting. They are all so strong!

Funny story. 

So we play sand volleyball with our district and another district (with the other Hermana J). We have soooo much fun playing together. We just laugh the whole time. Anyways, at one point, Elder M and I were going for the ball at the same time and we kind of bumped into each other and we were both going in for a hug and we were super close to each other and then we paused, stopped and yelled "aaaahhhhhh!" because we forgot we can’t hug. Everyone was dying laughing! They said it was a pretty funny sight to see!! 

Another funny story.

On the fourth of July during lunch someone put the tiniest little American flag in a plastic cup and put it on top of a juice machine and we all stood up gradually and sang the national anthem in the cafeteria. Pretty funny but pretty cool!

All of the hermanas and I in my district sang at a devotional this week! We sang "lead kindly light" in Spanish of course. I SANG TENOR BABY. Oh man I miss choir and singing and learning parts and all of that jazz. 

I still can’t believe I haven’t had my phone in a month. I haven’t heard or seen my family and friends in a month. I haven’t had real milk in a month. I haven’t not read the scriptures for at least an hour a day for a month. I haven’t driven a car. BUT I LOVE IT. I love not doing all of those things! I love not knowing what’s popular and what is the cool thing to do. I love it. I love being surrounded by missionaries all day long and building off of each other. I love serving the Lord and preparing to teach the people that are already prepared to learn from the Spirit. I cannot wait to get out into the field and meet these people! I. cannot. wait. 

I love you all so much. I am praying for you and hope you are doing the same for me!

Hermana Garner

All of the hermanas in our district with cute, authentic mexican shirts we got near the temple. Love them so much! I'm proud to call all of them my best friends.

 With one of the workers at the MTC.