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