4-7-14

Hello EVERYONE WONDERFUL!!!!!!!

Wow...I LOVED all of your New York Pictures!!!!!!!!  And of the temple in New York!  I totally wish I could have gone with you guys!  And Holy Moly Devin Carroll you´re going on a mission!!!  Here are my guesses.....Barcelona, Spain or San Jose, California.  I´ll be rooting for Spain all week, but I could see you going to California too for some reason:)  Anyway, I am SO excited for you Devin!  You are going to be ABSOLUTELY fantastic and get ready to learn SO much!!  It´s hard and wonderful all at the same time, and so rewarding.  I love you Dev!  Good luck this week and take a video for me, okeedokee?!

General Conference was SO so so so good!  I still haven´t been able to watch the very last session...because of the time difference here, they weren´t able to broadcast the very last session.  But, wow Conference is always so powerful and uplifting.  It is definitely an interesting experience watching it in Spanish.  You can kind of hear the English in the back ground, so if you´re not paying attention, you can get distracted by the English and then miss what they´re saying in Spanish haha!  It was so good though because Marino´s spouse, Ana, came to one of the sessions being broadcast in the chapel!  And she LOVED it!  Marino is still going strong since his baptism!  They said that they had watched the other sessions at home too and we were so happy to hear that!  When you listen to the prophet and the leaders of the church how can you NOT feel of their love and of the special witness that they are of the Savior.  I know that Ana felt the Spirit.  Even though, it has been difficult to meet with her, I KNOW she will be baptized some day.  Little by little, her knowledge of the Gospel and of the Atonement of Jesus Christ is growing and her heart is opening more and more to greater understanding.  Marino is looking forward to receiving the Priesthood soon.  How cool would it be to see Marino baptize his wife, Ana!?  I know that the Lord is blessing their family and that He has even greater blessings in store for them as they continue to learn more about and live the Gospel and learn more about the Temple.  We are hopeful for Ana!  

Jose Manuel also came to all 3 sessions of conference that were broadcast in the chapel!  He has been really hard to meet with also.  He is a full-time student and is very intellectual.  I haven´t been able to write Uncle Spence back, but He sent me an incredible email several weeks ago with some amazing insight as to how to help Jose Manuel understand the purpose of this life and why we are here.  I have been studying the attachment that he sent me for the passed few weeks and wow!  Uncle Spence, you are a rock star!  I love the way that you put everything!  He talked about how the purpose of this life is to learn to receive truth and embrace it.  We were all offered the opportunity to become like God, we had a degree of faith and hope that we could become like our Heavenly Father and be partakers of His divine nature.  We had the faith, in the pre-mortal life that if we came here, that the Atonement of Jesus Christ would heal us and enable us to return to live with our Father again, and enable us to become like Him.  There is so much more to how Uncle Spence explained it all, but it has been so helpful and so good!  Thank you so much Uncle Spence!  We hope to meet with Jose Manuel to teach him more.  He kind of dropped off the face of the earth for a while, but he´s back!  Hopefully:)  He didn´t have much time to talk with us after each conference session, but the fact that he came to all of the sessions though shows his interest in learning more.  We have tried to commit him to read the Book of Mormon, but he insists that he doesn´t have anytime right now.  He has told us that one day he knows he will read it, but that right now is not that time.  We have expressed to him that every question that He has, every thing that He doesn´t understand about this life will be answered if he reads the Book of Mormon.  Little by little, I think he will come along.  He truly is desiring and seeking truth and I hope that we can boldly testify to Him of the reality of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and of the Gospel.  And we just hope that He will take the time to read!

So, people ask the question all the time..."how are your investigators?"  I never realized, until now being on a mission, that that question is hard to answer!  We have lots of people who definitely express interest in what we believe on the streets, and who then become our "investigators" but in reality, the majority of the people we talk to don´t really keep commitments that we invite them to keep.  Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don´t, and sometimes they´re just wanting to be nice and so they say that they´ll do something, but then don´t do the thing that they say that they will do. Every week our "progressing investigator" number fluctuates...sometimes people come to church and keep their commitments, and sometimes they don´t.  So, basically what I´m trying to say is that that question is hard to answer haha :)  So....our investigators are doing pretty good...most of them are progressing at their own rhythm though :)

So did you know that Richard G. Scott translates His own Conference talks in Spanish!?  It was funny hearing him come on and start talking because I thought for like 2 seconds...wow, they got someone to talk for him who sounds just like him!  Haha, just kidding!  Isn´t that cool?  Also...when I was taking notes in English, I realized that I don´t know how to spell anymore in English.  I write so much in Spanish....all of my English "e´s" have turned into Spanish "i´s" and I just can´t write in English anymore!  I guess that´s a good sign...hopefully Spanish is sticking in my brain!  Also, the choir director of the second conference session is also the Provo MTC Choir Director who is THEEE BEST!  Devin...I really hope that you get to go to the  Provo MTC and experience everything there.  I LOVED the Provo MTC!  I received so much inspiration and revelation their, personally, and it is an incredible thing to realize the incredible work that all of the missionaries are about to go forth throughout the world and do.  Anyway...random tangent.  The MTC Choir Director is the best, and Devin.. I hope you go to the Provo MTC to get to be in a choir with him as your director.

I can´t remember if I told you some of these things already, but there are some things that I just think are hilarious about Spanish.

1) Tengo prisa....literally means "I have hurry" and people say it all the time to us when we try to talk to them on the streets and they don´t want to talk to us.  In Spanish there are just different ways of expressing things.  Like to say, "I am hungry" you say I have hunger..."Tengo Hambre."  haha :)

2) I was studying "Double Negatives" the other day.  I laughed thinking about all the times I´ve heard Spanish speakers say things in English differently in the past.  Now I know why!  Here´s a sentence in Spanish that will explain...Los líderes locales de la Iglesia no reciben ningun tipo de compensación económica...In other words (literally translated) as a Spanish speaking person might say, "The leaders of the church don´t receive no compensation...."  Haha, and that´s just one thing!  I´m starting to catch a glimpse of why it´s so hard for Spanish speakers to learn English; and the pronunciation is the hardest part for them!

3) Also two phrases that I think are hilarious:

"Dar la luz" literally means "to give light to" but in Spanish it means to give birth....or give light to the child!  Haha!

"Baile del Diente" literally means the dance of the tooth....they use that phrase to say that someone has a loose tooth.  Spanish :)  I love it!

Other news of the week...we have a kind of progressing investigator named Michael...he is from Africa, speaks English, and doesn´t have any family here or in Africa.  He is a good guy and loves life.  He has been apart of this big program for his church, that he invited us to this weekend.  His church is called Redeem!  The flyer he gave us advertised, "Two Days of HIGH praise!"  We went on Sunday and it was awesome!  We met two ladies on the way there who were also from Nigeria.  The one girl had two daughters with her named Favor and Frankincense!  Ok...seriously....Africans have the greatest names!  We have a guy that we talked to the other day, named Stone!  Stone.  Just Stone.  And he has 2 sets of triplets!  2 sons and 4 daughters...WHAT?  It´s great!  Anyway, we get to Michael´s church and there are a ton of Africans all dressed up in their big African outfits and cool hair wrap things, and they were just singing and dancing away!  Definitely a cultural experience for sure :) Michael was really happy we went and supported him.  We´re hoping to keep meeting with him :) 

Ok...and one more thing, here´s a scripture that has meant a lot to me here.  I can never remember what I have shared with you or not, but I love this scripture so much.

  

D&C 84:88 - "I will go before your face, I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts and mine angels round about you to bear you up."

I know with ALL of my heart that this is the Lord´s work, He is working with us and He truly is on our right and on our left helping us find the people who are prepared to hear the Gospel.  He works with each of us one by one, specifically and uniquely, because we are ALL important to Him.  I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I am grateful to be a messenger for Him and to be on His errand!   

I love you guys!  Have a great day and week!