"I Just Came Here to Dance"

haha well I better start off by explaining the title of this email. So I really needed some notebooks for Spanish so we went to the store here in the CCM (La TIenda) and they were completely out except this tiny one that says "I just came here to dance" hahahaha I bought it and we laugh at it every time. They got more in so I bought a bigger one so now I just use this notebook to jot down notes to include in emails, hence the title.

Okay so I wanted to start off with some spiritual thoughts from this week, since I know too much happens in a week to retell in one email the most important things I can say are how I am learning and growing here in the CCM.

The devotional last tuesday night was decent, the guy who spoke had very broken english but afterwards we had a district devotional review and wow it was so amazing. It´s crazy how much you can feel the spirit and get soo much out of a message that is so simple from the language. I hope that is what ends up coming across as I teach others. Here´s some thoughts from our night:

  - matthew´s advice to me before I leave keep sticking with me to keep it real and remember the spirit of the law. Its easy to get caught up in doing everything perfectly but we just need to be ourselves and remember why and who we´re doing everything for. Lose yourself in service but don´t lose yourself

-We need to have the Lord as our 3rd companion out here D&C 6:32

-I need to be the best missionary I can to convert myself and to show love for the Lord, not to show the world that I am so amazing.

-BE YOUR OWN FIRST CONVERT

-We sow what we reap, plant everyday.

-PMG is here to convert us, helps us relate and then convert others

-THE SPIRIT IS EVERYTHING, the language we should all speak is the pure love of Christ.

We had a really good class about stress management and this awesome quote from Cecil Samuelson was read from an MTC devo MArch 2002 and it basically just said that we shouldn´t lowers the standards the Lord sets, but we also should´nt be raising them higher than what the Lord has established. Such a good thought to remember! I definitely am way to hard on myself a lot of the time. 

Also in PMG there is a quote from President Monson about remembering patience and that has really helped me a lot this week.  I´ve been struggling with the language and it feels like everyone around me has spoken it before and at least understands it but I just really need to remember patience in all things. 

Okay wow this is getting long quick...haha i´ll be surprised if most of you are skimming this email now or just looking at pictures!! 

One more spiritual though. In relief society we talked about how there is a pattern in all things (d&c 52:14) and the pattern I am living in right now is the Garden of Eden into the Lone and dreary world. WE get comfortable in our gardens of eden like pre mission and then we get thrown into the CCM and its like our lone and dreary world but eventually by the end of the CCM we get comfortable and it will become our Garden of Eden. The pattern repeats over and over through our missions and life and we just need to remember that the Objective is progression, to learn and grow.  We also talked about Nephi building a boat and its like us building a mission The Lord will always provide a way and he has given us ore like scriptures, PMG, etc that we need to turn into tools and eventually we look back and it is amazing the boat we have built but it all come small things at a time. (read D&C 109:22-23 too) It just shows how we have the Lord on our side!!

Okay I think we need some humor now!! (keeps me sane)

-WE had service on wednesday and GUESS WHAT?!?! It was......SWEEPING bahaha of course. They must have been warned that I was so good at it ;)

-My companion went to BYU-H so she has sandals like me (picture attached) but they call them cockroach slippers...okay this is not too funny but the picture is?

-Our elders are so crazy and immature they were farting during TALL the other day...oh geez kind of funny the looks of other elders y hermanas though!

-our doorbell @ the casa sings CHRISTMAS music!!!

-our teacher (that was our investigator last week haha) Is so crazy!! He laughs at us and makes us run around buildings in skirts (to prep us for the stress class) And now we teach him again under a different name and he´s so funny he´ll pretend we´re at the wrong door (since its all outside and there isn´t a door) its just crazy.

- My bunk bed is SUPER squeaky and its so funny because we´re so exhausted at night and I can´t move a muscle without it being all crazy squeaky haha

FOOD:

never have I eaten so many cantelopes and beans like ever. There is super yummy chocolate cereal we have for desert. We had amazing caramel mexican popsicles and wow! Saturday they gave us chocolate chip COOKIES (inside family joke) haha who knew I missed cookies?? Peaches and apricots were a gem yesterday. 

Also fasting this sunday was for 24 hours (saturday lunch was last meal until sunday lunch) and I was definitely strengthened by the Lord because it wasn´t too diffficult!! 

MEXICO THINGS

-nightime sirens and dogs barking always

-INSANE rain (some pictures attached) serious puddles 

-Mosquitos came out this week and they are everywhere and LOVE me

MISC that I forgot

-Enrique our investigator turned night time teacher (Hermano Palma) caught be sleeping in class on accident the other day and oops was the embarrassing! haha good laugh though

-My companion is super athletic so every day during gym time we doo fun things (like run track, and play all sorts of sports) But I´m actually getting a lot better at making baskets in basketball!!

-A Hermana in our casa gave us stickers for our first fast sunday so now I have  a baby horse on the back of my name tag haha

spanish update:

I´ve memorized the missionary purpose, baptism invite, Moroni 10:5...)

Our teacher got mad so now we have to do SOLO ESPANOL which means if we say any spanish (except at night in our casa) we have to do pushups/situps and oh man I am going to struggle. At least we did get some latino natives in our casa this week for 2 weeks! So hopefully I´ll be able to start getting stuff. Although I can pray en espanol!! 

Well I´m out of time but I love yáll, sorry for the long email I´ll attach pictures in case you don´t have the stamina to read haha

xoxo

Hermana Smart