Hermana Medeiros Texas Houston Mission: Week 1 7/29/14

Today was Hermana Medeiros' P-Day (each week missionaries get one day to clean, do laundry, write letters home, do their shopping for the week, etc. It's called P-day, short for preparation day.)

I had sent her a few emails this week (one big one, and the rest were updates on various things), The one I sent her this morning was telling her that I'd met the mom of one of the Elders in her district on facebook this morning. She responded to that email with,
"Hey mommy! Yes he is my district and he is the sweetest guy he is so nice. i will have to share a story with you later. Right now we are just taking pictures of our emails and we will come back after we eat lunch and i will tell you all about my first week! anywhere between an half hour and an hour i will be on. i love you so much and will tell you all about my first week in a little while!!

Hermana Medeiros"

After she had lunch I got this email

Sorry once we were done eating there was no computers. So we had to wait! Buenos Dias! How are you doing?? I am glad to hear that my bumble bee is doing ok. Here's a big hug and lots of love to all of you!!

Wow I have been here for almost a week. It has gone by so fast when i think about it. there is so much that we have done this past week. I have two companions. Hermana Haslom y Hermana Woodard. I love them both and they are great. We all have different strengths and weaknesses and so we all help each other. Heremana Haslom is from Lehi Utah y Hermana Woodard is from Eugene Oregon. I think of tangled...haha.

On the first day once we ate and were in our rooms i unpacked and they slept. The second day we started classes. We met our district Elder Riding, Hickman, Nibblet, Ansack, Maher y elder Andrews. hermana Boulton y Hermana Mcarthur. Our teacher´s name is Hermano Alverz. El es muy divertido. He is a lot of fun. He mainly talks in Spanish but he talks slow and uses his hands and then re explains it in ingles. Later that night we met our branch and our branch presidency. We all got to stand up and introduce our selves and explain why we were there. When I stood up i felt complete excitement and was so happy. when we had a meeting with the president of the CCM we sang Called to serve...all FOUR verses. Yes i said four verse. i don´t know what the last two say but i hope i will soon. I was so tired by the end of that day. We had so many meetings. Its hard to be in a trio companionship. It takes longer to do things and make decisions.

Next day. We learned so much Spanish and we even had to teach our first investigator in only Spanish!! it was a disaster....We were supposed to teach him at 350 and someone in our district said that he would be on the third floor of the Thomas S. Monson building. We were there on time but he wasn't there. We kept looking and going back to the class room. We got help from elders in our district but we could not find him. We were about to give up and we had just walked outside again. i turned my head and on the side of the building hidden by a ledge was Daniel (prounounced Danielle) We felt so bad and we were so stressed and our whole lesson plan went SPLAT. After our lesson we went to La tienda and got chocolate and then went back to our house. Hermana Woodard curled up in a ball on her bed and wrote in her journal saying how awful it was and she was telling us what she was writing and then Hermana Haslom and I could not stop laughing!! That night we did our companion prayer and then sang I am a child of God. When we got to the chorus they tried to sing the quarter notes as eighth notes because the syllables were a little different but they still worked with quarter notes but they didn't understand me and so i had to start singing it for them to understand.

Next day. I learned not to study on my bed or study while laying down. i almost fell asleep and both my companions did fall asleep. I found scriptures that i really liked it's in D&C 58:2-4, 6-7. The whole section is muy fantástico but those are the verses i really liked. On this day there was loud Spanish music being played. Don't know where it was comping from or how far away from the MTC it was but it was loud! We taught Daniel again and it was a lot better than the first time.

Sunday was the best day ever! we had relief society, and a district meeting which were in English. During the district meeting we all shared stuff we learned over the week. i shared the scripture <i put above. Then we had sacrament meeting which was only in Spanish. It was hard to understand but it will get easier. Then we had another devotional and then had interviews with our branch presidency. and then ANOTHER devotional! They were all great. During dinner i had chicken and it was SPICY!!! my mouth was burning the whole time and it got worse with each bite. We then went to the auditorium and watched three videos. the sister Missionary one, only a stone cutter, and finding faith in Jesus Christ. They were all amazing! Then we had another district meeting and we all shared something from the videos. Almost everyone was crying. Everyone in my district has a strong spirit. I love them all. We started praying together at the end of each language study. We kneel in a circle and pray. Praying in Spanish is getting easier but i feel i repeat the same things over and over again.

Yesterday we had service. WE cleaned a house in which the missionaries had left that morning. We taught Daniel again. It was a millino times better than every other lesson. We learned that his girl friend wants to get married in the temple but he does drugs and drinks and other stuff. But he wants to get married in the temple to her so we taught him about repentance and the atonement. We shared a scripture with him and the spirit was so strong. Even though he is a member pretending to be an investigator it's still very real and the spirit is so strong. It´s funny because we could see his garments around his neck. At the end of the lesson Hermana Woodard said ¿picado orar? which means sin prayer? she meant to say ¿podemos orar? we all started laughing.

The campus here is so gorgeous and the food is great! although i do miss your cooking. I love my name tag it´s the first and last thing i take off every day. I've tried guava and magoes, don't really like them but oh well. I found master the tempest is ranging and as sisters in zion in the hymn book! I was so excited!!

The story with elder Hickman, after working on Tall (a way to study Spanish) he stopped our trio and said he had been thinking about us and felt that we all had struggled with things (from just saying little things in our testimonies) and so he went to La tienda and bought us Cookies. It was so sweet.

Today has been great! I've cleaned and done laundry. We are going to play kickball with our zone in less than an hour. I can only attach like five or seven pictures to every email so i´ll carefully choose which ones i want :) I loved the letters from the kids. I miss you all a lot. Now nobody else get hurt! ;) It´s great being here and i love it. i love my companions and i{m learning to have patience. It´s hard because i´m so used to leaving early and being on time for everything.

Love you all!!!

Talk to you next week!!