Camille has been using the name of a hymn in Spanish for the subject of her emails each week, so I thought that's how I'd title these posts. Here is this week's much anticipated email:
Mi familia!
First off, I am SO EXCITED that Scott is leaving today!! He is going to LOVE the mission. I know he'll be a fantastic missionary and he has nothing to worry about. I haven't been eating at members' houses very often yet, but that's ok because they feed us really heavy food and I kind of prefer to just feed myself. :) But the other day a menos activo made us pork tacos with pico that seriously were from heaven. We were all having a hard day and it just made everything better!
I haven't been riding a bike here either. We drive everywhere. But I think President is opening up more biking areas for sisters so I'll probably be doing that in the future. Right now my bike just sits in our apartment.
Yesterday was such a good Pascua (Easter). Last week we taught our Easter lesson a bajillion times which meant we got to testify of Christ and his resurrection over and over and over again. So yesterday when I woke up I was just so happy! I had caught the true meaning of Easter. Seriously! How great it is to think about Christ's resurrection and what it means! It's amazing and it makes me smile.
Also, we had a lot of people at church yesterday. Our ward isn't very active so it was good to see so many people here. And we had 3 investigators come to church, one of which we have only taught once and one of which (Abacu) we only talked to on the street! He showed up half an hour early and, after we had given him a tour, just read from the Libro de Mormon we gave him. He cried through the sacrament and when we sang Yo Se Que Vive Mi Senor (I Know That my Redeemer Lives) and stayed for all three hours! He told us he wants to keep learning. We're teaching him on Tuesday. I really hope we have success with him. He's great.
All the people here are great. Even though we're just in Texas I often feel like I'm in a different country, just because the culture is so different and prevalent. The women always hug you and give you the little cheek peck when they say hello or goodbye, even when they have just met you. And they're so little! I met our ward mission leader yesterday and could not believe how small he was. When I shook his hand I thought he was missing half of his fingers because they were so short. The first thing our ward missionary Hna. Gonzalez (I love, love, love her) said to me when I met her was, "How's the weather up there?" (Although I didn't understand her.) And a couple days ago a little girl came up to me and said, "You're big!" Everyone comments on my height, but in a very loving way. :) And it doesn't help that Hna. King is 5'. Haha.
Mi Espanol esta mejorando (it's getting better). Yesterday at church I could understand quite a bit. But it's still rough and I still feel like I have my head in the fog. And I'm pretty sure I have a terrible accent. When I made my first baptismal invite to a man named Israel, he turned to my companion and asked what I said. (Although to be fair, I think part of it was just that my question took him off guard.) I asked my companions to give me the phone more often, so now that is officially my responsibility. It's extra hard to understand people on the phone because of the static and the fact that you can't see their gestures, but if I don't understand them I'll just say, "Ok nos vemos manana? A las 7? Esta bien!" Usually everything they're saying is irrelevant (these people talk A LOT) and I can get by by just playing a little bit dumb. And worst case senario i just hand the phone to Hna. Hearne, like yesterday.
Things are much better with my companions. The fact still remains that they are really similar and I'm not like them, but they are such sweet, good girls and we have really had a lot of fun together. They sincerely care about me and this work and we're beginning to be a really powerful team, I think. That's the cool thing about missions: you get to (are forced to) be friends with people you would never choose to be around at home.
I've been pretty stressed the past couple days but it's just the same old story: I'm putting everything on myself. There's so many things to incorporate as a missionary and I don't feel like I can ever do it all. I'm pretty sure I'll be training in 2 or 3 transfers and that terrifies me. But I know Heavenly Father won't ask me to do anything I can't do. Plus, it isn't really me doing anything, it's the Spirit. I need to understand that. It's just easier said than done.
Mucho, mucho amor,
Hermana Lund
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