HOLA FAMILIA!
Its about 4 am for y’all so I'm excited that
you guys will be able to wake up and read this! But I am sad that you all forgot about me this week, and it’s
only the fourth week!!! Nahhh just
kidding! Y’all probably didn’t
realize I would be emailing on Monday since I emailed you the last two Tuesdays
and the first Wednesday. Just to
let you guys know again, I have no idea when I will be able to email. Sometimes
it might be Monday, or Tuesday, or even Wednesday. So if you guys can, please try and send your emails on
Sunday night. :)
But this week has been so fun and had such a
huge learning curve.
Last p-day after I emailed y’all we had
literally ALL DAY to do nothing.
They wouldn’t let us in our classrooms to study and we aren’t allowed to
study in our bedrooms either. That
made trying to study pretty hard so I wrote Luke a letter. You guys should be getting 3 letters in
the mail. This week pday I am writing Josh a letter. :) My goal is to write each
of you one snail mail letter before I leave the CCM. But anyways... After I wrote the letter to Luke my district
and the other norte district had a volleyball tournament. 4 Hours of volleyball. It was so much fun. My district had worked really hard all week
at working hard and being focused so it was the perfect relaxer for the
week. It was fun. Surprisingly, I don’t suck all that bad
at volleyball. But then again, all
of the Elders and other Hermanas aren’t exactly... hmmmmmm…. well….. lets just
say we wont be making it to the Olympics anytime soon. Ha ha ha But it is still fun!
I asked Presidente if we can have a Volleyball Turkey Bowl here in the
CCM. He said it would be fine, if
I organized it. So I am going to
try and do that if I have time.
Our deportes time is so sacred to us. It’s like one of the rare times during the week that we get
to go outside and feel sunlight and breathe fresh air and work up a sweat. So
it is so nice.
I got your “Dear Elder” this week Mom. I am so
confused as to why it takes so long to get here!?!? If you are still sending “Dear Elders” to me please
send them to the mission house in El Salvador because I don’t think they will
reach the CCM before I leave. That
goes for anything else you are
going to send to me, letters or the box.
The address at the mission house to send
LETTERS to is :
Hermana Chloe Kava
El Salvador San Salvador West/Belize Mission
Apartado Postal #81
Correo Multiplaza, S.S.
San Salvador,
El Salvador, C.A.
The address at the mission house to send
PACKAGES to is:
Hermana Chloe Kava
El Salvador San Salvador West/ Belize Mission
Boulevard El Hipodromo, Local 537
Colonia San Benito
CP San Salvador, San Salvador
El Salvador
Ok to answer some of your questions in the Dear
Elder that I received....
·
The weather is so bi-polar. The mornings remind me of Fall in
Idaho. ITS COLD!! But I like
it! The evenings are HOT like
Hawaii... I like that to! So basically
the weather here in Guatemala is perfect.
Our classrooms have AC so we don’t get to enjoy the weather very much. But still, I like it!
·
Do I have enough clothes? I have sufficient for my needs. I do have ENOUGH, but if you send some I
wont complain. :)
·
No, there isn’t spell check on here either so I
have no idea if things are spelled right or not. So sorry if it’s all
crazy. Ha ha ha
·
No, I didn’t get busted for not memorizing chap
3 of PMG. But I do wish I had studied it more! TELL MELE AND VELA TO STUDY IT!!
AND THE WHITE HANDBOOK! AND THE BOOK OF MORMON!!! AND EVERYTHING!!! SERIOUSLY!!
·
No, the other missionaries have not talked to
me about the photo memory card adaptor or how they plan on sending their photos
home. Then again, none of us have our cameras right now so photos aren’t really
a huge topic of conversation. :)
Okay so now about our investigators…the spirit
is so strong in the lessons. We
pray and fast for our investigators like crazy. We love our investigators! Even when they aren’t willing to do keep their commitments
or when they are in bad moods in our lessons. It’s been a struggle with Josue because his heart is so hard
and he just won’t soften it to the Spirit. We are trying so much to soften his heart! Please pray for Josue, please!!
These past two weeks my companions and I have
been tested with OBEDIENCE so many times, and a lot of the time, we failed. It has not been good. But I know that I have learned so much!!! The mission field has a lot of rules... but the
CCM has about 100 times more rules. It’s crazy. The
hardest part is that they don’t really tell you all of them. They tell you the
important ones and then you kinda just find out the others once you’ve broken
them. For some reason my
companions and I have all taken turns breaking rules. I am pretty sure we have not gone a single
day where we haven't broken a rule. It has been so discouraging. We kept thinking…. WHAT THE HECK!! WHY CANT WE JUST BE GOOD??!!
We started to get really down on
ourselves about it. We
didn’t do anything super bad or anything, for example here are some of the
things we have gotten busted for....
·
Wearing a jean shirt
·
Lights on past curfew
·
Asking Elders in our district for advice on
lessons
·
Playing Big Buddha as a district
·
Not carrying our money on us at all times
·
Talking to the Elders in our district at meals
·
Hermana G said a bad word in Spanish
·
Wearing cap sleeves
·
Sharing our email addresses
·
Having our window open at night
·
Going to the bathroom too much
See, so they aren’t serious things, but still,
we try to be obedient and then we break a rule without even knowing. I know I shouldn’t get too upset about
it, but my goal was to be SUPER obedient on my mission and I am already
breaking the rules. I know I just
have to keep trying and keep striving to be better. I’m not perfect and I am still learning and so everyday I
wake up and say “I am going to do better today than yesterday”. I told my companions how grateful I am
for these past two weeks and how happy I am that my Heavenly Father is teaching
me the importance of being obedient while I am still in the CCM. I would rather learn that in here then
out in El Salvador were it is 100 times more dangerous. So for that, I am so grateful. It has been such a good learning
experience. I know I need to know ALL
of the rules and be familiar with them, so that there isn’t even a chance that
I could break a rule.
Another thing that has happened this week,
which has made things a little difficult, is with the Latinos. Most of the Latina Hermanas are so
sweet. However, we have activities
where we practice teaching the Latino districts as if they were our
investigators. After the lesson
they give us feedback. Some of the
Latina Hermanas aren’t very nice about our language skills. They say some pretty mean things to us
about how we need to be speaking Spanish more and practice more, and how we
aren’t dedicated enough to learn. So,
I guess you can say that they are pretty harsh. I am trying to just take it with a soft heart and learn from
it and just keep working hard on my Spanish. Geez, I thought my Spanish was
pretty good until then! :( I feel bad for my companions though. They
got CHEWED OUT about their Spanish…. and their Spanish is better than
mine! Luckily, I taught a lesson
by myself and they taught their lesson together and the Latina Hermana that
they taught was way mean to them. But
oh well. ITS ALL GOOD!
Another issue has been that some of the Latino
Elders are very....... uhm….. well….. BLUNT!! And they aren’t afraid to get close to the Hermanas. SOOOO... We have had to keep our
distance. It is kinda funny
because my companions and I each have an Elder that has big crush on us. What isn’t funny is that they keep
trying to pass us notes, and they stare, and all kinds of weird stuff that they
shouldn’t be doing while on their missions. We told Presidente’s Wife, Hermana Cox, and she took care of
things. It was so uncomfortable
for a while to go to meals but now things are getting better. It has been a really unexpected issue
but I think that it was a good learning experience to have here at the CCM so
we know what to prepare ourselves for when we get out in the mission
field. This group of Latinos
leaves tomorrow morning anyways so then it will be fine. The missionaries that are already
native Spanish speakers only stay here at the CCM for two weeks. They leave for their missions as well
as the other Nortes who were here before us. It’s going to be hard saying goodbye to the other Hermanas
though!
This week should be exciting. The big group will all leave Tuesday
morning, then our pday is on Tuesday too and we are taking a bus to the oldest
part of town for a tour and then going to the biggest market to shop a little. The market is called Samako. Our goal is to pass out 3 Book of Mormons
while we are there. Hopefully that
works! Then we get to come home
and chill. Tuesday this place is
going to be dead. Just 5 Hermanas
and 20 Elders. But come Wednesday
we are getting 170 NEW LATINOS!!! IT’S
GOING TO BE A MAD HOUSE!! I’m not
sure how many of them are Hermanas and how many are elders. I am so excited… and nervous. This group will be the Latinos who will
be serving in our same missions. I
am so stoked to meet them!
Thursday is Thanksgiving and sweet Hermana Cox is cooking a big, old
fashioned, Thanksgiving dinner for us! Yes! And best of
all….we will have a live devotional from one of the Twelve Apostles! We don’t know which Apostle yet but we
are all soooo excited! After that,
we get to have the Turkey Bowl and then to top it all off Presidente just got the
movie MEET THE MORMONS so I’ll get to watch that again. This week should be awesome. I am super excited.
I am sad that I’ll miss Thanksgiving with y’all
and our ward’s Turkey Bowl and Daddy’s imu and just being with everyone. I hope that the ward invited lots of
non-members to the imu and that everyone does a ton of missionary work. But PLEASE send me lots of pictures for
next week. OKAY!
I love you all so much and I miss you all like
crazy. I spent too much time on
this email so I can’t send personal emails to everyone today... but please know
that I like you all so much, and I love you all so much and I think about
you! I am also glad that during
the week I am so so busy and focused on the work that I don’t think of you all
too much. I mean that in the
nicest way possible. :) It makes me not so homesick. I love you all!
Please tell Uncle David, Paine, and Bishop Hallstrom
that I am praying so hard for them to get better!!!
I love you Mommy!! I love you Daddy!! I love you Joshie!! I love you Lukie!! I love you Sissy!!! I love you Maui!!! I love you Kimmy!!!
--
--Hermana Kava--
No comments:
Post a Comment