Here is my attempt at doing a mass email!
So things are good! Today is my two week mark. A typical day usually consists of classes, studying, gym time, meals...obviously. Haha
My companion's name is Hermana Christen and she is like 5' 2" and from Mapelton. I really love her! She's super easy going and she helps me with my spanish a lot. She's really focused, but can have fun too which I'm really glad for!
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| MTC Companions |
A few days ago we were going on a walk with our teacher because we wanted a little break and it was nice outside. There were these 6 Mexicans who were working on the roof of our apartment building and they were on their lunch break. Our teacher asked them if we could practice our spanish with tem, so we just talked to them for a little bit. My teacher was my "companion" for the few minutes. As wee talked to them we found out they were all from Mexico and all family. They didn't speak much english and were catholic...I don't think they knew much about mormons even though they were working on the MTC. haha. It was really cool because it just felt like how I picture my mission will be. I was able to ask one of the men some stuff and he asked me some stuff. It was just really cool. We actually went back to our classroom to get some pass-a-long cards for them, but by the time we made it back they were back up on the roof again.
That whole experience was with our teacher Hermana Young. Our other teacher is Hermano Zuzunaga. He is from Peru and speaks pretty fast spanish. He's honestly an incredible teacher, but he's intimidating because he doesn't like us goofing off and he expects us to study hard. I can tell he really loves us but I think some of the people in my district just think he's mean. The other day, we were trying to learn about how to apply principle to meet peoples needs. It's really hard. We'd take a principle like "the apostasy" and try and turn it into an answer to meet people's needs if that makes sense. To practice, he told us to just try and ask him questions about him and his life and try and think of his real needs. As we talked to him we really got to know his personality better and past experiences and everything. He was super honest with us which was cool. No one had really asked about his love life, so I was like hey that's something worth knowing to try and learn about what he needs. So I attempted to ask him, "Have you had many girlfriends?" But I conjugated wrong and asked if he currently has many girlfriends. He was instantly like no no no! Like, I'm not that kind of person! I didn't get what I did wrong right away, but then someone whispered to me. Everyone laughed WAY hard about that. Haha!, Whoops!
That same teacher is also acting as our second investigator. All the investigators are teachers and they act as a real investigator they had on their mission. Hermano Zuzunaga had a really tough mission and so consequently, when he is an investigator for us, he makes it really hard too. When we went to "his door" like 2 days ago I think we totally failed. He's a different person for all the other companionships in the district and the rest of them did okay with him, but we didn't. We got there and he was just like, oh i'm catholic. Oh, i'm baptized. No I don't need anything, I'm good. I just don't know how to tell someone what they really need is what we can teach them. I got really frustrated after that little visit because not only can I not talk to him how I normally would, but as a missionary I didn't really know what to do either. It's tough because it is totally a realistic situation. I'm learning though! We have to go back again and it'll be harder because he'll be like, you're back??
Another thing we do here at the MTC is a thing called TRC. I forgot what it stands for. Basically we just talk to real members who speak our language and have a little visiting teaching message or something. Hermano Zuzunaga told us to ask questions that can help even a member be better. Everyone can improve and change something to be closer to Christ and really our goal is to find out what that can be with the member. That was really fun because the members are so nice and love missionaries. One guy we talked to had only been a convert for a year and is from Chile. He was SO nice and has such a strong convert testimony.
Well that's probably all I have time for. I love all of you! Let me know how you're doing!
Hermana Harper
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