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