I thought I would start out by saying how crazy it is that this is the last week in the CCM and that is surreal... I thought I would be a lot more excited to get out of here, but I´m actually already feeling a little nostalgic. I love this place. It is gorgeous and powerful and I have never been surrounded by so many people who don´t content with one another. But I´m grateful for the experience and, of course, I´m so excited to get to Oklahoma. Just so everyone has the details, my flight is on Tuesday morning at 6 AM. We have to leave the CCM at about 3 in the morning and we should get to Oklahoma around 2:45 PM. I was really looking forward to calling home at the airport, but the MTC President has claimed that that´s frowned upon because people keep missing their flights and it´s not actually in the handbook as being allowed...so I guess I´ll just play it safe and hopefully they let me email you when I get there.
I have really been feeling good about the week that we´ve had here. Out district has been really close because of some personal struggles some of the members had. One of them really was having a hard time, but through the power of prayer, their problems were solved and the whole experience strengthened my testimony a lot and strengthened our district together. I think this week is going to be difficult and emotional. At the end of every Sunday, we sing ''Para Siempre Dios Este con Vos´´ (God be with you till we meet again) and everybody cries and is nostalgic because these people have become your family and then you just leave and never see each other again. Unless you´re from Utah. Everyone is from Utah.
We´ve started pointing out things we´re going to miss about being here. Like the purple blossoms on the trees and the flowers that smell like soap, working out for an hour and then going to the Tienda to buy the cheapest candy ever, saying hello to everyone you see and no one thinking you´re weird for calling them brother and sister. Sunday night movies are my favorite. This past week we watched a movie about the construction of the Salt Lake Temple and it made me a little bit homesick. Just because I realized how much I love Salt Lake and the history it possesses. Then I started thinking about how so many people back home always think ´´uggh, why are the Mormons taking over Utah?´´ but in reality, the word Utah literally means Top of the Mountain. The construction of that temple based the layout for the grid system of Utah. Utah History in elementary school was all about the pioneers settling there. I don´t know... it just made me feel like there´s a place for me in Utah.
Saturday was a crazy day. We were told to prepare for ten investigators. Real investigators. Latino investigators, which means none of them would speak any English. So we hurried and prepared as much as we could and then we were thrown into it. We taught Anahi, Facundo, and Edgardo first. The first one was totally discouraging. It was the first experience I ever had to realize that not everyone who we will talk to will be interested in our message. I don´t know why I ever didn´t make that connection, but it stressed me out a little. My teacher talked me out of a lot of anxiety after that and we went to teach Facundo. He lives in Argentina so we taught him via Skype. I actually loved this lesson. He was so personable and so easy to talk to. I think the electronic aspect really cut down on a lot of the nerves for Hermana Chugg and myself and so we went to teach Edgardo and it was a lot less stressful. I realize now that they weren´t real investigators, but thinking they were made it feel real. Afterwards, we went to lunch and came back to teach some more. We taught a young men and young women group of Latinos and I got paired with the young womens leader. She was such a sweet lady. I felt her spirit. I felt her sheer love for me and I had such a strong feeling of love for her. I taught her about faith and the importance of it in every aspect of her life. Toward the end of the lesson, we sat in silence and wept. I told her I could feel the light of Christ in her and she told me she thought I was going to be a wonderful missionary. That she knew what I was trying to communicate and that my words touched her heart. She was remarkably sweet, little, probably in her late 60´s, and less than five feet tall. When she left, she kissed my cheeks and I remember, this is why I´m here! To touch people. To love people who may not feel like they are loved. To help them remember how to find joy in this earth and hereafter. At the end of the day, we only ended up teaching five people. But I was exhausted.
A lot of people ask me why I don´t write my letters home in Spanish. I´m sorry! I know I could, we just don´t have much time. But I will start incorporating it little by little I´m sure.
I´ll keep this email a little short but I want to attach some pictures for you all.
1. My roommates! Hermana Schultz, Rawlins, and Chugg. Hermana Schultz was the first person I met at the airport. Her mom said ´aw, she looks like she´s a missionary!´ And I promptly turned around and said, ít´s the shoes, isn´t it?´ First impressions are my thing.
2. The world´s cutest missionary farmer´s tan.
Yo se que el evangelio de Jesucristo es en la tierra hoy. Yo se que mi redentor, Jesucristo, viva y es mi herano. Esta es su obra y estoy muy entusiasmado que yo soy un misionera aqui hoy. You quiero ayudar todos las personas que necesitan escuchar la palabra de Dios. En el nombre de JesuCristo, Amen.
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