Hola Familia y Amigos!
I cannot believe I am actually
sitting in el CCM writing you an email. I guess this means I am a missionary! I
guess I should begin by saying that Wed. - Sun. = the longest days of my entire
life. A lot of girls had a really
difficult time adjusting, but I think I made the transition pretty well . . . so
far at least, haha. The MTC is a crazy
place! You have a schedule that you follow every single day to the T. Mine is
as follows:
6:30 Wake Up
7:20 Breakfast
7:50 Personal Study
8:50 Teaching Resources
11 Comp Study
12 Lunch
12:45 Language Study
2 Class
5 Dinner
6 Some other kind of study that we haven’t done that day, haha
7 Gym
8:30 Class
9 Daily Planning
9:30 Return to Residency
10:30 Lights Out
It fluctuates a little depending
on what day it is. For example, on Tuesday we have devotionals and we get some
personal time in the morning. On Sunday,
of course, we have church, and Thursday is PDAY [Preparation Day – shopping,
laundry, etc.]
Seriously you guys, this is the
happiest place I´ve ever been in my life and also one of the hardest things I
have ever had to do. The Spirit is
STRONG here, always. It is remarkable.
However, learning a language is really hard, especially at the pace we are
going. My teacher (Hermana Haws – aka the most wonderful individual I have ever
met) says that we have learned more in 6 days than most college language
classes learn the entire year. YUPP . . . so that is happening.
The kids in my class who took HS
Spanish say they have already learned more than all 4 years of HS Spanish. I
am, without a doubt, the slowest learner in my class. I speak broken Spanish, but I have been here
for a week people! And, I have learned SOOO much! We no longer pray, teach, or testify in English.
I have the baptismal invitation and “Our
Missionary Purpose” down pat. My prayers are still kinda Spanglish. For example: “Por favor bendice mi con al bien dias
manana. Estoy agradecidos por
mi familia y bendice nos con salud y fuerte. Por favor bendice . . . this
district con . . . unity . . .” – haha!
It goes it a little something like that.
Even though my Spanish is broken
I have learned that if the Spirit is present in lessons, then the investigator
will understand you. He may not understand what I am trying to say, but the
Spirit does, and He carries it to his heart. Our investigator's name is Carlos. He is the bomb. Our investigators here are
usually RM’s [Returned Missionaries] from BYU who volunteer to help out. They
take on the story of someone they taught on their mission. However, I have no idea what this guy’s real
name is, but to me he is 100% Carlos. Man,
I love him.
Yesterday my companion and I
challenged him to baptism and it was one of the absolute coolest experiences of
my life. We had talked about how Christ was baptized and if we are to follow
Christ’s example, we also need to be baptized by immersion. He started to respond saying that he wanted to
follow Christ (remember, this is in Spanish so I can only pick up like 15% of
what he actually says, and then piece it together, and hope I understand) and
as he was about to say that he wanted more time he paused and started to cry
and said: “My heart is ready.” He was
so overcome and so were we. It was just
perfect. So Carlos is getting baptized! YAYYYYY!!!!!!
Speaking of “We”, my companion’s
name is Hermana Howard. She is awesome and we get along splendidly. She wasn’t
active for most of her life, but her family is very active. She helps me with
Spanish; I help her with the gospel. It
is a match made in heaven – literally, hahaha.
Thank you to everyone who has
sent me letters this week: Sister Tryon,
the Thompsons, Mom, and Dale. I think
anybody that has not been on a mission may not truly understand how important it is to
get letters. Please, please, PLEASE write me. I know to you guys it seems like
I have been gone a week, because I have, haha, but to all of us here, we have
been gone for an eternity. One week in your life = 3 years in MTC time.
Seriously. I beg of anyone reading this
blog to write me a letter. And, HEY, sometimes writing letters takes a lot of
time and costs money. Here is a fancy
alternative . . . www.dearelder.com. You
have to create a little account, but basically you write me an email, but then
they print it and give it to me as a letter. It is a miracle. Utilize it [if you feel so inclined].
Dale: I would love to write you back, but I do not
have your address. Write me again and include your address!
Brian: I had something to tell you . . . but I just can’t
remember how to say it in English........ [Editor’s note: This is a private joke between siblings.]
Taylor: Remember that
conversation we had about baptism? I
agree with you now.
OH, QUICKLY, before my computer logs me out. MY ZONE IS
AWESOME. MY DISTRICT IS AWESOME. We have so much fun and our zone leaders are
fabulous. In fact, a story . . . Luke, you will like this: My zone leader, Elder Mellor, one night
decided to eat an entire orange . . . like peel and all. There are some weird
things that we do here to keep ourselves sane and relieve the stress that comes
with the MTC. Well it was pretty funny
and I was teasing him about it one day and he started telling everyone that
IIIIII was going to do the orange challenge! AHH . . . Long story short, I ate an entire orange.
I LOVE THE MTC. The Church is
true. This I know. I love you guys.
Amor Siempre,
Hermana Burnham
