Home Sweet CCM!

Well it’s been another great week here at the CCM!
 
Wednesday
We had a good PDay, the temple was awesome as usual, but it was sad to not be with our Avanzados…I got nice new Spanish scriptures which I’m super excited about because I haven’t had new scriptures since I was 8!!
 
Thursday
Our lessons with our ‘investigator’ Emerson have been interesting because he’s super catholic and has a lot of questions that he wants answered from the Bible. On Thursday we were supposed to be answering another question but I felt like we needed to tell him that he needs
to find out for himself about that and if what we’ve been teaching is true. That lesson went super well and he’s starting to progress more. It’s been awesome to learn how to recognize and listen to the spirit and be prompted what to say, because when the spirit speaks through
us, that’s when people learn. Later that night, Hna Moeaki came into our room and she and I talked about how we’re going to be FBI/government agents together someday. It sounds dumb but it was SUPER funny.
 
Saturday
WE LEFT THE WALLS. We went proselyting with the ‘real’ missionaries in the Lima Este mission and wow, it was an adventure…when we got to the church to meet the missionaries we’d be going with, they weren't there so we sat in the chapel and sang hymns. That was good because I was pretty nervous and it calmed me down. Hna Webster and I got to go with the only American sister there, Hna Minnson. She’s been out 13 months so she gave us lots of really good advice. We went to a lesson with a recently baptized convert that they’re continuing to teach, and walked about 25 minutes through Lima to get there. When we walked in the
door, this lady’s little boy ran up and gave us all hugs and he is just SO CUTE!! The lesson kind of got off track and hna Webster and I lost track of what was going on. But afterwards, the member was super nice and talked to us a bit. It was a good experience and I hope
things continue to go well with her. We took a mototaxi back to the church and that was CRAZY! We got to take a picture with Hermana Minnson and said goodbye. She was super cool and told us a lot of really good, and scary stories that have happened to her, which I will
not repeat. The whole experience kinda freaked all of us out and we were all very happy to be back in the safety of our big walls. Peru is very different than America and white, teenage girls stick out pretty bad…but then I remember that I’ll have grandma Karen and grandpa Arlo
with me and that if I’m obedient and try to be a good missionary, I’ll be protected.
 
Sunday
Hands-down the most spiritual day we’ve had. In sacrament meeting, we (the new avanzados) sang ‘Abide with me, tis eventide’ as the intermediate hymn and that was INCREDIBLE! It’s one of my favorite hymns and it was amazing to sing it together. All of our classes and
meetings were super super good, and then we got to watch an old Elder Bednar devotional!! We all get ridiculously excited for devotionals, especially when it’s elder Bednar. His wife spoke too, she’s so sweet and always has really good thoughts and insights. He spoke about the
character of Christ and it was so powerful! Afterwards we had a district meeting to discuss it and Hermana Moore (MTC President's wife) was with us, and she always adds so much to things like that. It was an incredibly spiritual day, and it really just solidified my testimony of the truthfulness of the church and the importance of the work we’re doing.
 
Tuesday
An area 70 was supposed to give our devotional but couldn’t come, so Elder Hansen from our branch presidency spoke. Before it started, he showed a slideshow video of pictures of all the baptisms from June 2010 when he was a mission president in Veracruz, Mexico. The video
was 12.5 minutes long and it was just baptisms from one month! Hna Allen and I played our violin duet and it went really well! It was awesome to play again and we got a lot of compliments. Elder Hansen’s talk was super good, and I understood almost all of it!! (he spoke in spanish and I didn’t use the headset to translate). So that was cool. For the closing hymn, we (the avanzados) sang the EFY medley and thatwas AMAZING!! I had chills the whole time and the spirit was so strong! Since being here I’ve realized how powerfully music can bring
the spirit to a meeting. It’s so powerful and I’ve loved the opportunity to sing so much and to play the violin.
 
I hope everyone at home is doing well and that you all have a fantastic week! The CCM is awesome, but you’ll only get one more update from here before I'm in the field! I love you all!!

Our District  

(apparently Anna did not get the memo on the teal skirt:)

 

Sublimes!!

DULCE!

We’re Avanzados now!! (The North American missionaries who have been in the MTC for 3 weeks) Our avanzados left Tuesday morning, it was super super sad, I really love all of them!! But the new Americans got here at 3 this morning so we all woke up and told them to just go to bed. We’ll meet them and get to know them better today and tomorrow. But it’s been a great week here in Peru!!
 
Wednesday
We got to do the temple session in English because we filled up the whole room and that was awesome, I got so much more out of it and it was awesome to go one more time with the avanzados. Afterwards we took a zone picture. The good thing is that all of them either live in or go to school in Utah or Idaho so it won’t be too hard to find each other once we get back. I still miss them a ton though.
 
Thursday
Pretty uneventful except that our class spider, Pedra, died. I sent a pic of her last week, the big black and yellow thing. She lived in a bush outside our classroom window, but they took out the bush and killed her… who would have ever thought I’d be sad about a spider dying jajaja.
 
Friday
It’s SO COLD! All of us are always cold anyways cuz they keep the AC turned up super high but now it’s cold outside too. Something funny happened in class though. Hermano Quintana was asking what a Spanish word means in English and the word was ‘acostumbra’ which means to be accustomed to. So elder Mortensen who sits next to me said ‘a custom bra!’ it was super funny, Hermana Webster and I DIED laughing!! He’s super funny, our district is so fun!!
 
Sunday
All of our church meetings were super good as always, and we got to watch the Joseph Smith movie! Our other classes were great as well, and we watched an old MTC devo with Elder Holland. You think his conference talks are powerful, you should have heard this devo! He was very upfront and did not mince his words. He talked about how we as missionaries have to live up to the good image of missionaries and the church, cuz we’re kind of an unofficial symbol of the church. It was really awesome and super motivating. After that, the Avanzados had a short testimony meeting so we got to go and listen to their
testimonies and that was super cool to hear all them do that.
 
Monday
Another Hermana in my district and I are playing a violin duet of ‘If You Could Hie to Kolob’ for next week’s devotional so we practiced this week. The two violins they have here are not very good, the one I’m using is only a ¾ size and pretty terrible. But since we both know how to play well, it sounds alright. I’ve never wanted my good violin so badly though. Monday night we had to say goodbye to our Avanzados and it was so so so sad!! I love them all so much and I know they’ll be awesome missionaries, but it was hard to say goodbye. The good thing though is that everyone either lives in or goes to school in Utah or Idaho, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find each other once we all get back.
 
Tuesday
Super lonely because the avanzados and the latinos left so it was just our district and the other American district. For our service project yesterday we made all the beds for all the new hermanas getting here today and tomorrow.
 
I love being here at the CCM, I love my companion, our district, the other district, the food, our teachers, feeling the spirit, getting to go to the temple every week, and learning how to speak to and teach the people of Peru!!! I can’t remember who told us, but they said that we’re not here to learn Spanish so we can feel cool when we go home and know a second language, we’re here to learn how to teach the gospel to the people of Peru in their own language. It’s been a good three weeks of ups and downs, but overall it’s really amazing, and I can’t wait to get to my mission!!! I hope everything is going well at home, I love and miss you all!!! BTW, 'dulce' means sweet and Elder Mortensen has started saying it instead of sweet, like when something good happens. It's funny because people don't actually say that here, but we all think it's really funny(: Also, 'que en el mundo' translates to 'what in the world' so we say that too, even though people here don't say it. Our teachers think we're crazy, but we think we're hilarious! (:

Our Avanzados

Misty Morning

Elder Mortensen

Que Piña

Hola Familia!! 

I hope life is going great! I'm so glad it’s Pday! Thank you so so so so so so so much for the candy and notes in my suitcases!! It was the best to find all that as I was unpacking! I’ve read all of them multiple times, they’re the best!!

Let me tell you about my week. Last Wednesday, we took pictures, did laundry, emailed family, and went to the temple! The temple was awesome!! It’s really small though, we barely fit 28 people in the endowment room. And some of the temple workers are tiny! There was one lady who couldn’t have been over 4’5”…but it was great! Maybe you already heard this from grandma, but I ran into the Perry’s from her ward outside the temple!! Crazy! They were picking up their son from the Iquitos mission, and I just happened to run into them at the Lima temple!

On Thursday, Elder Rasband came and spoke to us!! All the missionaries from Lima Sur and Lima Este came so our auditorium was packed! We all got to shake his hand, as well as Elder Godoy who was there as well. We sang I Know That My Redeemer Lives and wow, that was pretty powerful to hear a room full of missionaries and an apostle sing that! His talk was super good, and his wife and Elder Godoy and his wife all gave testimonies too. It was such a cool experience! That night we had our last lesson with Alejandro and taught about the Word of Wisdom. It went really well and Hermano Quintana said we did great!

On Saturday we started teaching our new investigators, Bryan (Hno. Cajo) and Emerson (Hno. Quintana). Emerson is super super catholic and whatever we taught him he said he didn’t believe, and he was just not open to anything…so that was interesting. Bryan just doesn’t believe in God, but he’s more open to other ideas.

On Sunday, our church meetings were super good! I love Sundays here because everything is in English, and we get to watch a church movie. At night we watch an old MTC devotional, so we watched one from Elder Bednar from a few years ago. It was INCREDIBLE. He talked about feeling the spirit and how to know if what we’re thinking is just us or if it’s actually the spirit. He said, Quit worrying about it! Do what you’re supposed to do, be faithful, and the Lord will guide you. He also told some really incredible stories, but I don’t have time to tell them. He did tell a funny joke though. He was talking about how it’s hard to get past the Isaiah chapters in the Book of Mormon, and how we all get stuck there. So a guy carried around a pocket sized book of Mormon, and one day, this guy came up to him to mug him, shot him in the chest where the Book of Mormon was, and the bullet stopped at the Isaiah chapters jajajajaja! I thought it was pretty funny.

On Monday during Physical Activity, Presidente and Hermana Moore came out and played soccer with us! It was super fun, and then some Latinos came and played too, and it was just way fun!

Yesterday Elder Moscoso from one of the quorums of the 70 came for our devotional. All of the Americans did a musical number ‘I Need Thee Every Hour’ except in Spanish, but it was so awesome! It was kinda hard to pay attention to his talk because he spoke in Spanish so we had to wear headsets while someone translated. The parts I got were really good though.

That’s pretty much been my week, but I’ll tell you about some other stuff real quick. My district is awesome!! It’s Hermana Webster and I, Hermanas Johnson and Allen, and Elders Vergara and Mortensen. We all have a lot of fun together and get along super great.

The other day I had a piece of cake that literally looked like a sponge…It was neon orange with some neon yellow stuff on top and it jiggled. It didn’t taste too bad, but it was super weird, I wish I had a picture. The alfajores (cookies) here are AMAZING and yesterday we had kind of a donut thing with dulce de leche in the middle and sugar on top. There are also these ice cream treats called Sublimes and (almost) all of the Americans LOVE them. They´re so good!

Also, there’s a saying here that’s ‘que piña’ which kinda means ‘whatever’ or ‘just my luck’ and Hermana Moeaki (from AF) and I think it’s super funny, but it’s slang so we’re not really supposed to use it. The translation is ‘what pineapple’ so we just say that and it’s super funny! To us anyways..

It’s kinda funny because our days are PACKED with classes and study time and everything else, but I feel like there’s never enough time to do everything I need to…it’s kinda frustrating, but the days are starting to go by quicker, and I’m learning a lot. Next week we’ll be the Avanzados!!! Crazy… anyway, I hope everyone is doing well! Sorry for the lack of pictures last week, hopefully it’ll work this time…Much love!!!

I am in Peru!

¡Hola! I am in Perú! It's great! Sorry, this is gonna be super long, so get ready(:

After you dropped me off at security, Hermanas Clark, McNamara and I went to our gate and met up with another girl going to Peru and some elders going someplace else. When we got to Atlanta, we met up with like 8 other missionaries flying to Peru, so that was cool. When we got to Peru, we all met up and made our way to customs. There were like 13 of us so we had like a small army of missionaries traipsing through the Lima airport. The drive to the CCM was about 45 minutes, and man, the area around the airport is SKETCHY. It was also about 1 in the morning so that didn't help. But as we got closer to the CCM it got nicer. We also drove past the Lima temple, it's about 10 minutes from here.

When we got here we dragged all our stuff inside (trying to drag along 3 suitcases is a major struggle btw...) and got assigned our rooms. When I got to mine, there were two hermanas already in there and they had made our beds for us so we could just go to sleep. My companion is Hermana Webster from Idaho, going to Cusco, and also in our room are Hermanas Allen and Johnson both going to Cusco too, and Hermanas Jeppson and Bray going to Arequipa and Trujillo Sur. After breakfast we met Presidente and Hermana Moore (the CCM president and his wife) and they gave us our nametags!!! It was the best! They are the nicest people and I love them so much, so Hafen, tell Camri that everyone loves her grandparents. (Hafen took the Moore's granddaughter to Prom this year).

We had to do a bunch of administrative stuff in the morning, then we had a class, then physical activity. The CCM has 3 buildings, A (administration), B (comedor {cafeteria} and computer labs), and C (classrooms and dorms). Then there's a courtyard with a fountain and benches, a grass volleyball area, casitas to teach investigators in (casitas are mini houses so you feel like you're actually teaching in a house), and a turf soccer field. It's great (: We had time to unpack and then we had dinner. They give us SO MUCH food, so I'm almost never hungry. It's mostly good though. After dinner we met our branch Presidency, 3 Americans and an Australian guy. All their wives help teach church classes and they're all really cool. At the beginning of the meeting with them, all the missionaries were there and we sang Called To Serve in Spanish, which was way cool! We had short interviews with a member of the presidency, then had more time to unpack before bed. I have never in my life been so excited to go to bed...It was probably the longest day of my life.

Thursday started with personal study, so Hermana Webster and I went outside. It's misty and overcast in the morning so it's really pretty. After breakfast we had a class, then our first language class with Hermanos Cajo y Gavancho. They are both really cool and we got to start learning Spanish! Throughout the day we had other classes and physical activity and stuff. I can now say I've played soccer in Peru and it's awesome to play with the Latinos!

Right now there's about 25 Americans and around 75 Latinos, and I like that because we all know each other now. That will change in two weeks though when the Latinos and Avanzados (The Americans that have already done half their time) leave in 2 weeks. Then we'll get about 45 Americans. The Latinos and Latinas are super nice and will talk to us and teach us words, so it's fun to sit by them at mealtimes and stuff. Our last class of the day is with Hermano Quintana who is way cool and super helpful. We started preparing to teach our investigator the next night, so we got a lot of help from him and another teacher. 

The next day, Friday, we started the Common Core stuff and TALL. TALL is a language learning software that everyone hates because it's not user friendly at all and just isn't very fun. Physical activity was fun and then after dinner we went to our classroom to get instructions for teaching our first investigator, Alejandro. Hermana Webster and I had prepared a lesson about how we are all children of God, but we ended up talking about living prophets. It was a pretty good lesson, considering it was our first one, and I'm surprised by how much Spanish I can understand and speak, but I know it's the Spirit helping me to remember what I learned from my 6 years of school Spanish. Also, we learned how to pray in Spanish, so that's super cool to be able to do, even if the prayers are really short and simple.

Saturday night we taught Alejandro again (who's just Hermano Quintana), though it didn't go quite as well. But we challenged him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon.

Sunday was awesome because everything is in English!! Church was awesome and all our other classes too. We got to watch the Legacy movie and had classes with members of the Branch presidency and the Moores. We also watched an old MTC devotional with Elder Scott that was really good. For fast Sunday, we start fasting after lunch on Saturday and end for lunch on Sunday. We all really enjoyed dinner as a result of that. Monday morning we had to get up at 5 to go to Interpol for Visa stuff. We were packed in a van and drove about 35 minutes through Lima. People here are CRAZY. They pass when they want and where they want, and are very liberal with their horns. The stoplights have timers so you can see how much longer the light will be red or green. You would think that Interpol would be in a nice building and be organized and clean, but not so. You do most of the waiting outside and the offices are not very nice. We had a bunch of paperwork, got our pictures taken, got fingerprinted, and our teeth checked. Once we were done, we drove back to the CCM. It was nice to get outside the walls, we were all talking about how we felt like Jasmin in Aladin, like Lima is a 'whole new world' to us jajajaja. The rest of the day was pretty normal, and we taught again. I played soccer with the Latinos and the elders in my district, and it was super fun. The Latinos we played with are super good and I can't do much against them.

Yesterday was pretty normal, with classes and TALL. We also had a service project (cleaning windows) and watched the broadcasted devotional from the Provo MTC, which was cool. P-day is the best, we all love the chance to relax a bit and wear normal clothes.

Here are some random things that are cool about here. The Avanzados are super cool and basically my favorite people. There are the Sister Training Leaders, then 5 other Hermanas, and three elders. My district is Hna. Webster and myself, Hnas Johnson and Allen, and Elders Vergara and Mortensen. We all get along really well and have a lot of fun together. We hear a ton of sirens throughout the day and yesterday we heard gunshots! The doors are always wide open, it's a miracle we don't get a ton of bugs or birds inside. The grounds here are beautiful and are always really clean. The food is mostly good, we just get a ton of it. Something the Avanzados told us about is 'nuncas y siempres'. nunca = never and siempre = always, so they refer to digestion or the lack thereof, if you get what I mean. Neither one is fun but all the Americans have one or the other pretty much all the time jajaja. I have tried a lot of food here like papaya (not great), kiwi (liked the taste, not the texture), and various drinks, meats, and sauces, so I'm branching out a bit (:  I love and miss you all so much, I think about you at nights, which is kinda the only time I have time to, but you're always in my heart! Anyway, I love it here and I love Peru and can't wait to get to Trujillo to start the real work!!

Peru CCM