There and Back Again, a Sister Missionary's Tale : Week 3

OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!

hehe. couldn't suppress my excitement for Justin and Jenn!!!! congrats you two!! and yes i got your dear elders justin! thanks!

ok...and not cool for going to angel's landing without me!!! whose the one who always says let's go to moab and southern utah!???!!!! this girl!!! but yes, congrats to mum! now maybe you can come skydiving with me and justin when i get home!! :D haha.

sooo this week FLEW by once again. it's seriously crazy that ill be in chile less than 3 weeks from now...barely. i was telling hermana call yesterday that we would probably be waking up to our first morning there in 3 weeks from that time. hahaha. we're all so excited! we leave on april 8, i believe. we're not singing at conference, but we were filmed for mtc choir singing "like ten thousand legions marching" and they said it will be playing between sessions of conference...so yeah. if you wanna look for me...also, we're going to be the oldest mtc district in our zone after this upcoming tuesday.

Let's see. we had some good happenings this week for sure. our teacher hermano avila-the intense one whose just been back from a mission for only a month or two, he gave us some really good lectures! the first one was on saturday night. i remember we all went home just in daze because it was so much information that none of us had ever really given much thought too. it was mostly about the atonement, which was super neat. it made the gospel seem so much more real too. his lesson made me want to read the scriptures so much more too. since then, i've spent a lot of time studying the atonement. i heard a quote that the more we study and apply the atonement, the more we will want to teach it to others. i thought that was cool. on sunday, we watched the "joseph smith, prophet of the restoration" movie. I LOVE IT!!

the language is coming along. we have some good funny lines that we say in english, that have now been translated into spanish. one of the elders name is elder barbosa and he is from brazil, and he's learning spanish from his second language which is english. we call him and his comp the "capitans" because his last name is barbosa and his comp, looks like captain america. haha. he's the youngest out of all of us-he just finished high school last semester i think. we all think he's pretty awesome because he makes us laugh when the time is right! our district has become pretty good friends which is awesome!! i know i have a long way to go with the language, but i can't wait until we're finally fluent! all of us find ourselves in this strange spanglish limbo. for example, if i have a song stuck in my head, then i usually try to translate the lyrics to spanish. im sure other missionaries can relate.

tuesday we sang in the choir and the news came and recorded us singing that song. so that was cool. then we had devotional and the speaker and his wife were amazing! one thing i liked in particular, was when he was saying we're leaving our comforts of home to know the true comforter-the holy ghost. he's really the only comfort we need. i know that will be something i'll learn throughout my mission especially. we had a district devotional after that, and we all got up to bear our testimonies. people gave some really good testimonies about what they had heard that night. after that, our district leader got up and closed with his testimony in spanish. he then looked at each of us and said something that i can't remember. i know i felt the spirit of God in the classroom that night.

i've felt pretty happy this week! these weeks are flying by, but i can't say how excited i am for going to chile. i can't wait to be there and put my faith to the test.

wednesday was sort of a downer...i didn't sleep super well and woke up with a charlie horse in my calf at like 3 in the morning. the day before i felt super parched in my throat, and figured it was just super dry, but wrong-o. my throat is super dry and swollen which really kinda stinks...the elder next to me had a cold and i found myself catching a runny nose too. blehhhhhh. hopefully ill feel better soon!

i still got to go to the temple this morning which was always a good experience. i also said goodbye to soster briscoe for the last time for 18 months :( she will do great things. i will miss seeing her around here!

i have so much to learn, but i feel like i've learned so much in the past 3 weeks already!

p.s. this is for justin, first off congrats, and also, i met an elder david heel- he's got sort of a british accent. he's our zl and he said you and him worked together. crazy right? he's a cool elder.

i love you all. thanks for the package again. i know erika would love the showers here...hahahaha. not.

-hermana hanks