Hola familia!!
So we're emailing today because this week is a little different. We get to go to the market tomorrow!! Woo!! We are all so stoked to leave the CCM. I love it, but it will be so nice to go out in the real world for a few hours.
This week was good! A little more rough than the first week, but still good. I'm just tired a lot, so for an hourish everyday I'm just soooo out of it. But after that everything is back to being great!!! I'm still surprisingly good at knock out sometimes. I made a few 3 pointers this week AND I got out the best Elder in our zone. Everyone cheered so soooo loud. It was awesome. We aren't teaching Alvero anymore. He's meeting with missionaries in his area so he can be baptized. It was amazing practice though!! I learned so so much!
The Hispanos leave tomorrow! They don't have to learn Spanish so they only need 2 weeks at the CCM. Its sooo sad! We love our roommates. And all of the Hispanas are so fun to try and talk to. In church yesterday I was talking to one and she says, 'Your face is so pretty! You look like a Barbie!' and I was just like oh my gosh you guys are so awesome. It was a funny compliment. Its sad though because I want to keep up with them but they're going to missions in different countries. (PS its raining and thundering sooooo hard right now. Its so so awesome. Just thought I'd throw that in there.) We don't have our cameras (because they might get stolen) so we can't take pictures with our roommates or anything. But there will be new hispana missionaries coming in on Weds. So we'll make more friends.
So for breakfast we discovered this really awesome soupy thing that they serve as an option. Our roommates said its called arroz con leche, aka rice with milk. It tastes like oatmeal and horchata mixed together. Its amazing. I swear my first thought of the day was 'Ahh I cant wait to have that ricey soupy stuff' at least 3 times this week.
On Wednesday, we were eating lunch like usual. And all of a sudden a mariachi band comes strolling into the cafeteria and everyone (mostly the hispanos) went wiiiilddd! And they had this huggge colorful cake and started singing. It was a surprise for the President of the CCM's bday! It was sooo cool! Everyone was so excited and we just sang and dance and cheered for the rest of the hour! It was quite the fiesta. It was so cool to be there and be like this isn't a Casa Bonita mariachi band. This is the culture!
Last Friday I planned a "match your companion" day for our district. Which I was so excited about! And everyone looked awesome. Hna Griffin and I looked way good. We each wore a navy polk-a-dot skirt with a white shirt, red belt, and grey cardigan. We were basically twins and it was great! But then I had to go change because this semi-mean guy said that if we matched then everyone would want to match....Uhh okay. It was weird and not what I expected but we looked dang good until that happened. Match your companion day was crushed after that.
So we're quickly learning that some Spanish words sound very alike, and sometimes mixing up those words could be really bad. It hasn't happened yet, but there are some that we laugh over. For example, diario is journal and diaria is diarrhea. So you would want to be careful saying 'I've have my journal for 3 years.' And pescado means fish and pecado means sin. So, you would not want to teach someone learning about the church that 'We all have fish, everyone has fish. I even have fish. But we can help you be free from your fish.' You also wouldn't want to say at lunch 'Can I please have extra sin today?' This whole language barrier thing is really fun. But Spanish is coming along well. I really like learning it. Its frustrating teaching sometimes because you want to explain something in a way that makes sense but I don't know the words or the grammar to do it. I'm really glad to be at this CCM instead of Provo though because you are forced to speak Spanish way way more. I like it. Just talking to people normally is better than it was 2 weeks ago, but still really shaky. I'm more confident in trying to talk to people but still not great. I can teach a whole lesson in Spanish about the church though. It's literally a miracle.
(The power keeps going out so I'm going to send this in parts, in case the computer shuts down)
Week Dos cont'd
We decided that Sundays here are awesome. Its so refreshing to be taught instead of planning and teaching all day. And its sooo cool to hear the gospel in English!!! Its incredible how big of a difference it makes. It motivates me to learn more Spanish so that the people here will appreciate the message more. Sunday is movie day. The teachers have the day off and the branch presidencies don't want to talk all day so we watch movies. Last night we watched the Testaments, Legacy, Mormon Messages, and a recorded Devotional. Its nice.
You guys need to keep me updated on what's going on. Like football games and Whodunnit and such.
And I got your Dear Elder Letters, mom and Sadie! It seems like that's an awesome way to write me here at the CCM. We get the letters every Weds. Just an FYI. And I only have an hour to email people every week, but I basically have all day to write physical letters. So I might respond to some emails that way instead.
The temple was awesome! Its small but beautiful and you can tell the people here really treasure it! Hermana Griffin and I are doing well teaching our fake investigators. Its hard work, but really rewarding. I think that's all for now! Good to hear from you guys!!!
Love you all!
One More Thing-
Oh! And we have a new teacher at night. His name is Hno Sian. On the first day he was going over rules and stuff and he said, "We're going to fast every week. This week we'll fast one day , two days next week, etc. until we fast the whole week." and we all started freaking out. I was like I might starve but if the Lord wants me to do this I'll do it hahaha. Then he says "Don't worry it will be a fast of English" and we were all like whew! we can eat!!! So today we are "fasting English" for the first time. From 3:30 today until 3:30 tomorrow we're giving up English. Which wont be too awful, but by week 6 we will have a week JUST in Spanish. I'm excited (:
okay that's all for now