Friday, March 20, 2015 -- Week #5, Day #32 Guatemala MTC

10:25 pm

This morning Hna Kleinman came by and we switched spots, and they both returned to the CCM later that afternoon. So she's on like 9 different medications to keep her allergies in check, and they're kinda hard on her body. But she's been such a trooper and held herself together so well. Hna Morales shared a little quote she made up: "Such is life, and life is good," and I think Hna Brady takes that to heart quite well.

Thursday, March 19, 2015 -- Week #5, Day #31 Guatemala MTC

I didn't write on this day, because I was in the ER with Hna Brady because of her allergies. I stayed the night at the hospital with her, too, so now I can say that I have drank 2 cups of Guatemalan chamomile tea, had some Guatemalan pineapple Jello, and slept on the floor of a Guatemalan hospital! I went back to the CCM in the morning of the 20th, where Hna Kleinman switched with me. 

So here's the story from this whole experience - Written on 3/25/15

Today right after lunch, Hna Brady started having a severe allergic reaction to something, so we went down to Hna Cox and she called the doctors for the CCM and was ordering some medicine for her. We asked E Cox and E Roth to give her a blessing, which they did, and we finally ended up taking her to the hospital because her face was so swollen and she was all covered in hives and though she could breathe alright, her throat was getting tight and it was difficult to swallow medication.

So all three of us went down to the hospital and sat there for 3-4 hours, I think, while the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong, and gave her adrenaline and some heavy antihistamines to help her symptoms. Eventually we came to the decision that that she needed to stay the night in case something flared up again (as this was her second reaction in 2 weeks and they get exponentially more severe) so Hno Cajas took Hna Kleinman and I back to the CCM.

I quickly ate some dinner and grabbed my pillow, blanket and scriptures, and he took me back to the hospital and I stayed with Hna Brady that night. She was stable and ok, but still kinda puffy, so we just talked and read about Moses in Exodus, and I had to go hunt down a doctor person to ask if she could have some dinner (in Spanish, of course) since her call button thing did not seem to be working and she was quite hungry.

After that it was time to sleep, so tried to fall asleep in the chair by the bed for a few hours, but all the beeping of monitors and little blue lights and people constantly coming in and out of the room finally got to me, so I borrowed a blanket from Hna Brady's bed for my legs and used my snowflake blanket for my upper half, and cocooned up nicely on the floor right by her bed, and it was actually quite comfortable.

Wednesday, March 18, 2015 -- Month #1, Week #5, Day #30 Guatemala MTC

9:52 pm

Today was a fun day. We met some of our new latinas, and they are so cute! We found out that some of them are going to our missions, so we are pretty happy to finally meet latinas who are going to our missions, and that we will be traveling with them in 2 weeks to those missions. So cool to finally have some exit buddies!

We also have nortes in our shared room this time, instead of latinas.  It's so weird to have English speakers next to us when we've always been speaking Spanish for a month! But it's good, Hna Loli is from Australia and she is so cool! I adore her. She doesn't know a lick of Spanish, and she hung with our trio for a few hours while her companion was napping and we talked for a while and that was so fun.

In some sad news, Daniela moved to France, so we get to teach Karen now, and she is just a little ball of fun (some sarcasm is intended). So that's gonna be an adventure for our last 2 weeks, we still have Frederman, I'm pretty sure, and Lucy and all our other normal practices with latinos and distritos mateo y job. The teaching continues!

Hno Garcia played a joke on us, ugh, we were so mad at him! He had been telling us the past few days that we would probably get new teachers for our last 2 weeks, and we were kinda sad about that, because my teachers are seriously amazing people, and also his supervisor's wife just had her baby on Sunday, I think, so he's basically doing that guy's job as he takes off for a week or so, and so we didn't see much of him this week as it is.

Anyway, he was getting the latinos settled and figured out, so we didn't see him at all today, after not seeing him on Sunday, and not again on P-day, so it had been awhile.  Anyway, he poked his head in the classroom that morning and said that he would come back in a little while and introduce our new teacher later in the afternoon, so after lunch we all file back in to study, and he walks in with Hno Coc (who speaks Spanish and Q'eqchi' but no English), and he introduces himself and stuff and starts teaching our grammar lesson, and Hno Garcia leaves to go do his supervisor stuff, and we're just sitting there trying to accept our new reality and having this teacher for our last 2 weeks who only spoke Spanish, and we had never seen him before, and we didn't know how our investigators would change and if we would lose Hna Giron as well, so we were all kinda slumped and sad-looking, I suppose. 

But then we hear Hno Garcia just lose it in the hallway and then he comes back in, folded in half from laughter and told us that he thought our faces were so funny and that he was actually still our teacher. He had been watching us through the window in the door and this had been one of the best responses he'd had from his little joke as he's been teaching. So we all laughed about it and it was pretty funny. 

Also, some fun new words I learned today were "esternocleidomastoideo" (sternocleidomastoid), "calamar" (squid), and "pulpo" (octopus).  I love Spanish!

Tuesday, March 17, 2015 -- Week #5, Day #29 Guatemala MTC

1:48 pm

Today we went to the temple as we always do on P-day in the CCM, except we had a 7:00 am session, so we woke up at 5:50 so we could leave to walk over there at 6:15, so that was a little earlier than normal. But the temple was really good, I enjoyed being in the Celestial room with my companions sitting on either side of me.

It was funny, the second Hna Kleinman came and sat down next to Hna Brady and I, I just felt so happy and "As Sister in Zion/ Armies of Helaman" Medley popped into my head.

We came back and had breakfast, and then wrote our families, and then went over to the local strip mall thing and shopped around for a little bit.  It was so fun to wander around the stores and look at all the colorful stuff! We were such girls getting all excited and running around and pointing out cool stuff, and I'm sure our Elders thought we were nuts. But that was really fun, and I got a package of Haribo Peach candy, I had no idea they made them! But they're pretty yummy.

Also, Hna Brady got her blood-work test results from yesterday, and she's allergic to something in the milk, so no more milk for her on the mission! So hopefully her allergies will clear up while she's still in the CCM with regular medical access, and then she just won't be able to eat milk products for a while. But she should be good now! Yay for medicine!

So we had lunch and we're chilling in our room, Hna Brady is straightening her beautifully crazy curly hair, and we're making our beds... and I got a surprise blanket for this rotation of bedding! I normally use 2 blankets because they are thinner and I get cold when I sleep, as everyone well knows, so when they come to strip our beds I guess they must have noticed that, so this time around they gave me a ginormous Disney princess blanket with roses and sparkles on it that I can fold in half for my bed... it made me smile and mis companeras thought that was so awesome, they are quite jealous. So I get to hang with Belle, Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Jasmine for the next 2 weeks, in addition to my snowflake blanket, of course.

Also, in ways of accomplishments lately, my hair has grown about an inch, so in a ponytail, it brushes against the back of my neck a little bit, so that´s kinda exciting, I can't wait for longer hair again. And I've also moved up to 10 lbs weights when I work on my arms during deportes, so I'm kinda proud of myself for that. I did 5 for a week, 8 for a week, and now I'm trying out the 10 lb-ers, and seeing how that goes.

Monday, March 16, 2015 -- Week #4, Day #28 Guatemala MTC

10:18 pm

It is another night of goodbyes! We get new people tomorrow, and we can enjoy another P-day... we have 2 more weeks! Ah! But today was a good day, our lessons went very well, and hopefully we can get Daniela baptized on Saturday. That would be awesome!

Also, some good scriptures from lately:

D&C 11:21-30

D&C 35:8-17, 26-27

John 14:26-27

Also, I'm pretty sure that was the day that Hna Brady went and got blood-work done for her allergies, so we went with her to the doctor's office and waited in the waiting room and worked on memorizing the points of lesson 3 in Spanish in PMG... good stuff!

And a translation of "More Holiness Give Me" [Hymn 131]

More holiness give me, more consecration

more patience give me, more acceptance

more meaningful hopes, more selflessness

more zeal in service, with more prayer.

More gratitude give me, more faith in the Lord,

more joy in His glory, more strength and valor

more tears shed for what He suffered

I want more humility, like which Christ showed.

More honest doings, more sadness to sin,

more pure and clean, more quick to love,

more worthy of the kingdom, more free from error,

more justified, more like the Lord.

Sunday, March 15, 2015 -- Week #4, Day #27 Guatemala MTC

10:04 pm

Sunday was a long day today! But good. In district meeting mis companeras and I taught about personal revelation, and I shared D&C 31:11,13... I like that scripture.  Also, D&C 31 is just wonderful overall, so I challenge you to go read that one... good stuff!

Also, I'm fairly certain I'm leaving the CCM on March 31 sometime, so I have 2 more weeks and I'm in the field! Crazy! But also exciting, my first 2 weeks here felt like forever, and these past 2 weeks flew by, I can't believe we'll get a whole bunch more of brand new missionaries on Tuesday, and we'll be the oldest people here. I really can't figure out my concept of time here, it is the strangest thing.

Also, I gave the closing prayer in Sacrament Meeting today, and participated in a musical number with Latinos and nortes, we sang an arrangement of "Nearer My God to Thee," and it was beautiful.

Random fact, and I'm fairly certain I mentioned it before, but I was once again impressed today by how the salad lettuce is shredded into thin strips, instead of cut into squares or chunks...makes for an interesting eating experience. Just thought that was something super important you should know about the cuisine of the Guatemala CCM, as that is something that is always on your minds.

But on a more spiritual note in light of it being Sunday, we watched the Joseph Smith video and it was pretty neat to see what we keep teaching to these people all day long. It is amazing to see what the Lord requires of His people, but even more amazing are the blessings we receive because of our obedience. We are promised by the Lord that obedience and blessings are tied to each other, and thus as we submit our will we are given more opportunities and happiness than before we did. Interesting cause and effect to think about. The more we sacrifice, the more free we become, until it isn't a hard thing to be obedient anymore, and that is when we have a fullness of joy and peace. The Gospel is so cool!

But back with the Joseph Smith movie (weird saying that in English!), after Joseph won at a stick pull contest, he said jokingly to the brother that had lost that "Sometimes God brings us low, so He can lift us higher," and I think that is applicable to all things in life. Christ descended below all things, and because of that, He is the Son of the Highest. And we have that potential in us, to be the righteous children of our Heavenly Father that will choose the right, and be faithful, and persevere to the end, through the pain and the trials and sadness and hard times, because we have that hope and faith in Christ, our perfect example, who has experienced our individual thoughts and feelings, and because of that, He knows what the best ways are to help us when we then experience our tests in life. We can have complete trust in the Lord, and He will never let us down. Never ever.

Friday, March 13, 2015 -- Week #4, Day #25 Guatemala MTC

10:09 pm

Today we had laundry because transfers are on Tuesday, so we did laundry early. We finally had time to fold everything, but then I didn't have much time to write. But I will try!

So breakfast was pretty darn awesome, we had 2 corn tortillas with black beans and cheese in between, with scrambled eggs and sliced green onions, and a thin red salsa over everything, and fried plantains on the side. Ah, so good! I absolutely love plantains... and mango juice again because it makes me happy inside. So I thoroughly enjoyed that lovely meal.

Fun fact, latinos tend to cover their mouths when they laugh and sometimes when they smile, also they never go barefoot, even indoors, and I've taken to wearing my flip-flops around our room because the tiles are so cold. So I don't think I'll adapt to covering my face all the time, but I like the foot covering idea here, and especially in the field, I imagine, when I most likely won't have nice tile floors.

Also, our investigator for misionero-misionero training, (Lucy played by Hna Morales), was acting like she was high today during the lesson, so that was interesting to work with. Somehow she agreed to baptism, but we'll see how much she remembers when we teach her tomorrow. Yup, the Word of Wisdom is there for a reason! Just say no!

I was flipping through my journal and I came to some quotes from Kolipoki (Elder John H. Groberg) that I had copied down earlier, so I thought I'd share them:  

"Sometimes God calms the storm, and sometimes He calms His child."

"There is a connection between heaven and earth. Finding that connection gives meaning to everything, including death. Missing it makes everything meaningless, including life."

"You develop faith by doing things that require faith."

"Our joy now and forever is inextricably tied to our capacity to love."

"Satan wants to claim our souls and those of our children. He wants our marriages and families to fail. He wants darkness to reign. Despite this, we needn't worry or back away from our duty to our family (present or future), our community, or others, for God will always support and bless us in our honest efforts to do His will. He wants us to succeed more than Satan wants us to fail, and God is always more powerful."