Week 3

Hola todos! So it's gotten to the point where I am having trouble finding time to write in my journal with how busy we are here... Horrible... So I'm  just going to give highlights. I can tell you though that my teachers here are fantastic and the lesson that mi y mi companera give everyday are getting so much better:)

Well we had some more of our zone leave for the field yesterday and this morning... My district is now the zone... We didn't get any new missionaries this week and we won't get any tomorrow, so we have to combine with an all elders zone on Sunday if we want the sacrament. Hopefully we will get some more missionaries soon:)

Our district now has a Best Two Years story. Hermana Kunzler was teaching an "investigator" with her companera and she switched up some words. So instead of saying God is our loving Father, she said God is our lunch father... Hijole! Muy chistoso! And we have learned a new game. It's called El Jugar de los Limones or The Game of the Lemons... If you know how to play Big Boody, it's just like that:)

We also started something called TRC, which is basically where you either go share a 20 minute spiritual thought, in Spanish, to a member, or you teach a 20 minute lesson to an "investigator" or a real investigator. It was super fun. The first time we went mi y mi companera taught with a member and she was so great. We also talked to a member from Concepcion, Chile. She was super sweet:) Yesterday we started teaching with an actual investigator. She's really interested in the temples and forever families, so hopefully we answer her questions:)

Our Tuesday devotional last week was really good. Elder Bradley Foster spoke to us about not wasting time on our missions and the importance of prayer. He was very animated and compared our missions to a race. He explained that we can't get caught up lacing our shoes in the middle of our missions. We need to use every minute serving the Lord. And I would suggest to ya'll to read D&C 98:1-3. Muy Bueno:)

On Sunday we learned about different cycles. In Relief Society we learned about the cycle of sacrifice. We love the things we sacrifice for and we sacrifice for the things we love. In Sacrament, we learned about the cycle of success. In order to find success, first you need faith. Then comes humility, patience, and then much work. And as you have faith and humble yourself, the Lord is preparing the hearts of those you will serve. And the devotional we had was awesome! The talk was given by Brother Allen, who's in charge of a lot of things dealing with missionaries. But he talked about being an honest and true missionary and he was very firm about what he said, like Elder Holland firm. But he spoke about how we need to be exactly obedient and if we don't want to basically we can just go home. He used the song True to the Faith a lot and it made me think about other's who have served. Some people have even given their lives for the Gospel. We need to be examples of that cause. It was so great! Tonight we are supposed to have a general authority come speak and it might just be Elder Holland. He comes like every two months and he's supposed to be due now. Can't Wait to see:)

Another really great thing that happened was that when I went to the temple I looked up to see my grandma there. Oh my goodness! I was so excited... More in shock though... I wasn't expecting to see anyone... But it was great:)

Anyway I would love to hear from people, so please write to me. Mail is a treasure out here. You can even try dearelder.com too. It's like a letter, but I will get it faster:) Love ya'll!! Behave yourselves;)

Love Always,

Hermana Walker

Week 2

Hola everyone! So I've now survived 2 weeks and I think I'll be able to survive 18 months. This week was very interesting and so much fun!

Wednesday- Today was service day, so we had to wake up super early to meet up with the rest of our service group. When we got there, we had to do a service orientation with one other district while everyone else started on the service. They just told us that we were cleaning classrooms and whatnot and then went on to tell us some rules that we need to abide by in our own classrooms. But it came to the point where they realized that they had enough people doing the service. And since the other district was only going to be here for one service project, they got to do it and we got to go home early... Kind of sad... But it gave time to get to know our district a little bit better. We also had our 3 class periods. I had a really good personal and companion study with mi companera. Then we had 3 hours with our regular teacher. And remember the investigator we had to teach last week? He's now my teacher... But he's great! :) His name is Hermano Toledo. He's super strict and only allows us to speak in Spanish. But it's such a great help :)

Thursday- We did a lot of studying today. They have this language study program on the computers called TALL and me and mi companera spent most of our study time on that. It's really beneficial and I learn things that my teachers have not yet taught me. Hermano Toledo's class was really fun too. It was actually warm outside, so he took us out there and gave us vocabulary word for the random things he saw out there. And Hermano Lounsberry gave a really good lesson too. For all of those future missionaries out there. Read Alma 37. Good read :)

Friday- I've survived 10 days! I had a very effective study and now we are learning how to teach the first lesson. We're going to have times where nuestras maestros will be investigators and we have to teach them, so this is important to remember. We got to play volley ball with the elders in our zone that will be leaving this week. They've become like brothers to us, so it's sad to see them go :( We also had a sick Hermana in my district and I got the chance to help take care of her. It was fun and I got to get to know her a little bit better :)

Saturday- Today was like any other day. We had our classes and played a lot more volleyball. That's become our favorite sport to play during gym:)

Sunday- Today we were able to listen to Music and the Spoken Word. It got a little emotional because most of the music they sang was music I had the chance to perform in Chamber choir senior year :) Relief Society was great! And Sacrament was awesome. I got to lead the music :) We also had a very good district meeting about enduring to the end. Then he had a devotional about loving the people you are serving in your mission. It was an incredible talk and I got lots of notes :) I also had the chance to watch the Joseph Smith movie! Unfortunately we didn't get to see the ending.... :(

Monday- It was so bare here... Around 100 missionaries from west campus left last night. But we had our classes and me and Hermana Young taught Hermano Toledo for our "investigator/teacher" lessons. I think it went really well. And I didn't have ANY notes! The gift of tongues is real! :) There was no one around to play volleyball, so my district played foursquare and I went on the machines for a little while. I felt so good after :)

Today so far I have been able to go do a session at the temple and we kind of toured main campus. The temple was such a spiritual experience and I can't wait for next week to go back. It's going to be so great! And also I would love to hear from people. Mail is something every missionary looks forward to :)

Sister Annekke Walker

APR14   MEX-OAX   Unit 827

2023 N 900 E

Provo, UT 84602

Anyways... I'll write again next week! Hasta luego!

Love Always,

Hermana Walker

Week 1

Hola everyone... Sorry. If you know Spanish and see I don't have accents or those little curvy things on top of n's, it's because I haven't figured out how to put them in emails yet. And I don't even know if I'm doing any of my Spanish right anyway. This week has been stressful, long in a short way if you know what I mean, and just fun:)

On Wednesday after I got dropped off, I grabbed my books and my name tag, put my stuff in my room, and went straight to classes... All in Spanish... I was dying. I had no idea what my meastro was saying, but luckily he was very animated, so I understood from hand gestures. But I spent about 6-7 hours in class. I met mi companera. Su llama Hermana Young y she is from Gilbert, Arizona. She's super sweet, very tiny, but great:) I'm also in a district of 6 hermanas. Unheard of! And still I have not found a soul going to Oaxaca...

On Thursday we woke up, had breakfast, and went to class. And I got sick... No bueno... It was like a stomach sick and later I got a cold... But we had 4 hours without a teacher and had no idea what we were supposed to do because no one tells us anything, so we spent that time doing personal study and getting to know each other. During gym, we met up with some hermanas who are only here for two weeks and some of the elders and played 4 square. I haven't played that since elementary school. It was so fun:) During our next class period, we talked about our purpose as a missionary... And found out we were going to be teaching an investigator. All in Spanish. Freak out! After dinner, we had a meeting with our branch president and interviews. He is such a funny guy!

Friday was a good day. I still had the cold, but my stomach ache went away. We didn't have a teacher during our first class period, so me and Hermana Young did an hour of study time and spent the rest of the time preparing for the lesson with our investigator Edwin. Found out we had to teach him twice, so we prepared a lesson about the restoration and then the Book of Mormon. They went really well although we had to look at our notes the whole time. But I think that's okay since it was only our second day learning Spanish. For gym our district played volleyball against a district of all elders and oh my goodness it was so much fun! We were laughing and joking around around. It was great:) That night we met our zone and sister training leaders. They were really nice and gave us a lot of pointers on how to have a good time at the MTC.

Saturday we had the same schedule. We went to class after breakfast, but luckily our maestro was there in the morning, so we were able to find out exactly what we were supposed to be doing... At the MTC you kind of just go by what you think you should be doing instead of being told on an exact schedule like at EFY... Weird... We found out we were to teach Edwin again, so we took our first class period to learn what Hermano Lounsberry had prepared, our second to have personal study and prepare our lessons with Edwin, and our third to teach. We did pretty well with our lessons today. We decided to teach him about the Plan of Salvation and it went great, but he kind of freaked out about the part about Spirit Paradise and Spirit Prison and we had no idea how to explain that part. So we took that as our topic for our second lesson. We told him that Spirit Prison isn't a scary place, but that it's were you go if you couldn't or didn't receive the gospel in this life and that those in Spirit Paradise go teach them. Then we went on and talked about the Kingdoms of Glory. He loved it. More volleyball for exercise.

Sunday was different. After breakfast we had about an hour of personal study time and then the hermanas left to see Music and the Spoken Word and Relief Society. Then we had Sacrament. I guess they have everyone write a 5 minute talk all in Spanish on the topic of the week, but they pick at random on the spot so you never know when you'll be picked on. Same as the prayers. This week it was about relying on the Spirit. After that we had more study time, went to a devotional and learned about getting to know the members of the church. Then we watched a talk by Elder Bednar about Christlike characteristics and how they need to become our instinct.

Monday we had class and prepared to talk to Edwin. He wanted to know the differences about out church and the Catholic church, so we put together something about the Book of Mormon and living prophets. And it went really well. And we asked him to start reading the Book of Mormon and he accepted:) Before our second lesson we learned from a fellow elder about just going there and letting the Spirit guide. So we did that. At first we had no idea what any of us were talking about and we didn't bring notes to help us. But we ended up keeping a good conversation with him. And it ended with us giving him the promise in Moroni and we bore our testimonies. The Spirit was so strong in there and he promised to keep reading and to pray of it's truth. It was really great:)

Today we went to the temple and later we are going to Salt Lake to meet with the Mexican consulate for our visas. And after that were going to be running around like none other to do everything we need to. But I love you all! Hasta luego!!

Love Always,

Hermana Walker

I'm Alive!!

Hey guys! I survived my first day. My companion is Hermana Young. She's 21 and from Gilbert, Arizona. I'm in a district of 6 girls, no elders, which is really rare. My first day was so crazy, I still don't think I've processed it all. But I had fun. There was a lot of walking back and forth from our residential area to our classrooms. I guess there are so many Spanish speaking missionaries that they had to convert part of BYU housing into a Spanish speaking campus. I went straight to Spanish after receiving my books and dropping off my stuff and of course I was overwhelmed. But thankfully our maestro is very animated when he speaks. And the food is delish. I thought it was going to be buffet style like everyone was saying, but they've got specific entrees for each meal and little things around the sides. I've also noticed that it is more lenient over on this campus than on the main campus and that's what a lot of other people have said, which I'm grateful for. I think the sleeping schedule is going to be really good for me. I had gym time and played four square for 40 minutes. Hermana Young and I wanted to use the machines, but they were all full. I had a lot of class time and hopefully my study will improve.... I'm teaching an investigator tomorrow, so pray for me.... Well, te amo! I miss you and be happy... I hope my room isn't a morgue...

Love Always, Hermana Walker