Woohoo!!! First baptism!! Hermana I. has helped me feel so at home here. It's been a long process to help her accept the gospel (mostly the doing of Hermana Martinez and her missionary comp before me). But watching her change of heart has been amazing. I can testify that baptism really does change people.
I love this!! (By the way, after this picture...I put my hair back up.. because the amount of cat calls I get triples when my hair is down. Plus, it's freaking hot.)
What is your typical daily schedule?
6:30am - wake up, exercise
7:00 - get ready, eat
8:00 - personal study
9:00 - comp study
10:00 - language study
11:00 - training
Noon - 2:00 pm - proselyte
2-3:00 - eat with member
3-9:00 or 9:30 - proselyte
9:30 -10ish - plan
10ish - eat
10:30pm - sleep
What was your first Sunday in Tuxtla like? How many members attend church?
About 60 members attend church....but nobody is on time. We always are
the first ones there. The first Sunday only one new investigator came to
church and 3 older ones. But, the next Sunday we had 7 investigators at
church!! Also, I gave a talk.... in Spanish.... haha....about repentance!
It was scary but a ton of members came up to me and said my Spanish was
very clear and very good. But probably only because Hermana Martinez edited it
for me..... hahahaha. But yeah it was good! We also teach a gospel
doctrine class which is fun.
Have you had to use your Pet Parade Dog Repeller to fend off any stray dogs?
I haven't been carrying it with me but I probably should because the
other day we had two perros (dogs) follow us for awhile... but yeah there are
literally hundreds of dogs in the calle (street) but they are friendly unless
you have food. It's actually really sad.... Sav would cry (Hermana Hansen's sister) - lol.
How are you feeling physically (adjusting to the food, headaches, shin splints, etc)?
Physically adjusting to the food I've been fine. Guess it was all that
sushi, Indian and Thai food during college ha ha (thanks Tiff, Alicia
and Andy!) But once I drank some bad water (it was supposedly
filtered... but no way) and yeah I was super sick for a week. But, I was
still able to work so that was good. I get headaches a lot I think because of the heat...but I drink a lot of water from a creepy filter that works fabulously that the MTC gave me so that's rad.
I've only had to
stay in one day and it's because when I woke up I couldn't move the upper
left half of my body. No joke. It was all tense. I was able to finally
move my arm but not my neck or head. It was just all tense. I think it's a
combination from the stress from my bag and my tendonitis (Jordyn battled shoulder tendonitis during her swimming days). So we called
the doctor and my comp now has to give me massages with this creepy gel
every night! hahahahaha. But yeah it was kind of horrible because I couldn't move - but on the bright side I got to watch 17 miracles (and see Savanna Lewis die... which I sobbed during) and study the scriptures all day. (Savanna is our neighbor who played a character in the movie) My neck still hurts and I don't have full range of motion. But, I know what to do for it because of all my tendonitis probs and PT training so it's all good. But yeah, I'm glad my bag turns into a backpack!
Did you get to watch General Conference?
Yeah conference was fab! I got to watch the first session in Spanish....but didn't understand hardly anything. But, I got to watch the rest with English subtitles.
