I did feel like Frodo

I dressed up as Alice in Wonderland for a morning. I wore my white Peter pan blouse with the blue dress, white nylons, and black shoes. Hermana Moleli curled my hair and I put a twisted black hair tie in via bobby pin so it looked like a little bow. I got a picture of it, and then changed because I was too embarrassed, and because I would have been a distraction. Pero, Hermana Moleli wants me to dress up like Shirley Temple one of these days, in my red dress and she'll curl my hair, and she says "And you'll wear it all day long.'' ...We'll see. Yeah...muy embarrassed about that. It was fun, but the idea of going out in public like that horrified me.

We haven't seen the women's session of General Confrence, yet. They're going to show it to us while the men are in their priesthood session this weekend. It'll be good. Last night, we watched a devotional from Elder Bednar, and I got this urge to cross-stitch. Instead, I'll be listening intently to what the prophets have to say.

Last Thursday, I was playing kickball with my zone, and my shoes have 0 grip on the dirt, and I didn't bring tennis shoes. So I kicked the ball, went to run, and went down. My shoe had slipped, and I landed on the ground. My knee was scratched up for a while--it's loads better now. I also hit my face, but I just lost some skin cells, didn't bleed. However, I hit my shoulder, and when I went to look at it, there was a big dirt spot on my garment, but just a few little bruises. It was like my garment was saying with that big dirt spot, "Hey, I took the hit for ya." I though that was amazing. Next morning, I did feel like Frodo, how he felt after being nearly speared by a javelin, but saved my the mithril shirt--"caught between an anvil and hammer." I was sore, but I've recovered beautifully since then. 

 

We got two new investigators this week. We're done with Enrique, pero now we have Miguel y Juan. We taught Miguel on Lunes. He is a tough nut to crack. He's very serious, 'course he doesn't speak any ingles, and...well, the lesson went bad, that's all there is to it. 

 

I keep getting the feeling that I need to learn more Spanish, more Spanish. They say it takes 600-1000 hours of practice before one is even functional in the language. Here at the CCM, we have over 600 waking hours, which means that if we talked as much Spanish as we could every waking minute, we could become functional in Espanol, and yet, how much time have we already wasted. This is the beginning of our third week in the CCM....It just means I have to apply myself more, is all. 

 

The picture of trees are jacamaraca or jacamerangue..jaca-something trees. They flower first and then sprout leaves. When I was flying into Mexico, I saw them and said to myself, "What are those purple trees?" Turns out they're flowers. This picture is from my second day here. The trees have lost nearly all their blossoms now and are beginning to sprout leaves.

Learning espanol en Mexico is interesting. This is the first time in my life that I have had all male teachers for my classes. They teach two by two (Mostly because one will be the investigator and the other keeps the rest of us in line). ;) and I love listening to them speak together. They speak muy rapido, like I do with my ingles, but I can almost understand them. My biggest trouble is learning what all the little words mean. Only two days ago did I learn to put an a in front of people you're talking about. It's called the personal A. Por ejemplo--Yo hablo a los misionaros. (I talk to the missionaries). Note the a before "the missionaries". Yup, learned about that two days ago. Also, I'm having trouble with using all the tenses, but that's because I haven't learned them yet. :) However, I am definately learning. I can understand the native speakers, but I still need to practice responding to them. Necesito practicar más. We had some native speakers in our casa who helped us learn español, pero they left Lunes mañana. Mi companera  fue muy  riste, y me tamibien. We made good memories with them, and we will miss them. 

 

I need to go, pero don't forget I love you and thanks for being awesome!

Hermana Brown