This is so stressful for me right now. We only have an hour
to write, so I don´t even have time to read all the emails people sent me
because I need to write some emails! What the elders here do is copy and print
up all the emails they were sent and then reply to the specific questions a
week later. Let’s hope I have enough time to say what I want to say!
First off, I´ve been so blessed on my mission adventures so
far! Literally every significant issue I’ve had has been resolved. My first
flight left late, but I (just barely) had time to make it to my second flight
before it took off. I lost my suit pants and found them in another elder’s
locker the day before he flew out (he confused it with his own). I had a weird
bug bite that I was worried was going to kill me, but it went away. Yeah, tons
of stuff like that!
I guess I´ll start off by talking about my flight. Remember
that Book of Mormon that Bishop Manly gave me to hand out? Well, on my
first flight, I placed it! I sat next to a really kind college-age woman named
Alecia who talked to me the whole plane ride. She was kind enough to sit
through my long-winded explanation (you know me) of what I was doing leaving on
a mission, what the Book of Mormon is, what it´s about, and she even accepted
the copy I offered her. She was an incredibly Christian woman and it was so
nice relaxing and talking to her. She even asked for my email and blog
information and said she´d try to keep up with my adventures. Really though, as
stressed as I was to be flying on my own, it was a huge blessing to be next to
someone so kind and helpful.
The rest of the flights were pretty uneventful, except the
11 hour flight to Argentina
The CCM (pronounced sey-sey-emmeh) has been great so far.
Elder Fullmer was assigned to be my companion and we get along pretty
swimmingly. He was a cool kid/soccer player in high school, (for reals, out
during actividad fisica (physical activity) he does the most complicated/cool moves
with a soccer ball that I´ve ever seen before). But he knows how to tease and
joke around, so we really do get along pretty well. It´s focusing that we
struggle with sometimes... haha.
Our district is pretty great too. We have Elder Behrens, his
comp elder Beyeler, Hermana Hunsaker, her companera Hermana Loveall, Elder
Brock, and Elder Bowen. We all get along really well too and have a lot of fun
speaking Spanglish together in classes.
Elder Fullmer and I are in a room with a bunch of Latinos
and we have a blast! I don’t know their names all yet... but we have a super
funny guy from Chile, a super sweet guy from Columbia, a joker from Equador,
and a super calm relaxed guy from Paraguay who has actually taught me some
Guarani! I know how to say dog and "what’s up" now! But yeah, we love
trying to talk to the Latinos in Spanish. We don’t speak it well yet, but we
are definitely improving!
I´m pretty happy with our classes now, but for the first two
or three days they were so difficult! They told us what to do, but didn’t
explain well how to do it, so I never felt like I was doing anything right or
studying well enough or working hard enough. That’s a huge weight to feel when
you know that your time isn’t actually your time because it’s the Lord’s time.
But now, things are starting to make sense. Elder Fullmer and I had our first
really successful lesson last night. We teach "investigators" (they
are really our teachers pretending to be people they met on their missions) in
something called IP (ee-peh). We basically go through the whole teaching
process, learning their needs, what they want and all that fun stuff. I’ts
amazing that we can actually get spiritual thoughts across, bear testimonies,
and (sort of) say prayers with such a limited knowledge of the Spanish
language!
You would be so proud of me, Mom! haha. I´ve eaten a ton of
food here that I would have griped about at home (sorry). But for reals. There
is not a single meal that’s been put in front of me that I haven’t eaten--and
we don’t get the option of all you can eat, whatever you want at the CCM. Our
food is actually (relatively) healthy meals. But yeah, I've eaten lentil soup,
tons of chicken, noodles with a bunch of vegetables and some mushrooms. And I
always clear my plate. The meals are like the perfect size for me too. I'm
never stuffed, but I never go hungry either. Some other cool things I´ve eaten:
kiwis (you eat them with the skin like an apple), a whole apple (literally.
stem, seeds, core, and all), and a few pears. Oh! I lied about eating
everything. I will not eat flan. It is a weird desert that has the most awful
texture I’ve ever experienced. It’s like a pile of nasty animal fat that
dissolves in your mouth and has this weird syrupy stuff on it. It’s gross.
That’s pretty much it... There are bidets here, so that’s
been... interesting; we saw a double rainbow the other day; there are a ton of
dogs outside our "compound" (it feels like a prison during actividad
fisica); and we got to go to the Buenos
Aires
I love you all and I can't wait to get a chance to actually
read all your emails!
Elder Fairbanks
No comments:
Post a Comment