¡Feliz Navidad!

August 22, 2013

¡Hola! ¿Como esta? I loved getting all of your letters. Not only from family, but friends too!  To explain my email title: Pday is like Christmas. Sunday´s are like Thanksgiving, and getting a letter during the week is like your birthday! I love Christmas and Thanksgiving, but I would like to have a few "birthdays" while I´m here. You can dear elder me or write me! It's on dearelder.com.  I  love hearing from all of you! I swear, email time is the only time I´ve really cried at the CCM! But what can you do? All of your letters are just wonderful!

So let me tell you a little bit more about Mexico! IT´s great. Unlike NE, the weather here has been in the 60s and 70s. It´s been good, but I´m going to die when I get to Bakersfield! It´s been in the high 90s there (we have weather gadgets on the monitors. I always look at Mexico City, Bakersfield, and Omaha and compare. You guys have had BEAUTIFUL weather!).

But let me tell you more about the food. It´s great! They take American favorites sometimes and Mexicanize them.  It´s good. They are normal meats, but with sauces and served in dishes that I have no idea what they are called.  Lunch is the biggest meal of the day here (cultural thing) and they always have fresh corn tortillas, delicious rice, beans, and the best salsa ever (besides Dad´s, his is number one). So I´m always happy.

There´s a ton of people here now. They keep bringing them by the bus load! We don´t have any Latinos with us these next two weeks, so there´s only 8 girls for a house with 5 bathrooms--heaven! We have 3 washers and one dryer. We mostly hang our clothing outside to dry on the clothes lines they have. It´s pretty cool!

So my district. They´re super bien! We have 7 elders. 4 are going to Arcadia, CA, 2 to Santa Rosa, CA, and one to NY NY south. They´re a lot of fun. We´ve become good friends and they´re really sweet and helpful. We play basquetbol, volleyball and futbol with them. It´s a lot of fun, but I get too competitive for being a missionary.  Oh well! My district has 4 hermanas. One is from Alambama going to Provo, and the other is from Cedar City going to Chicago. They are tons of fun. Super cute too; we have problems with elders coming up and trying to flirt withthem! Oh dear. But what´s interesting is... I´m the oldest! I just turned 19 in May too! My companion is 2 days younger than me, so I´m not that much older. But me and her are the only ones (and 1 elder) that have ever lived away from home before. So sometimes it reminds me of freshmen year, but then at times they are really mature and handling things really well. They are good examples to me. I love them!

So let me tell you, prayers really work! Thank you SOOOO much for all the prayers. Things are going really well.  All the prayers have done miracles. I´m a million times grateful for them!

The Spanish is coming along. It´s still hard. I know a lot of vocab, but the grammar is killing me! I´m struggling with it, just like HS. Haha. Oh well! I´m practicing the new things I know, and me and Hna. Stott are trying to speak it more and more. We´re both understanding things more and speaking better. Maybe next week I can send a video of me speaking some Spanish! But I´m trying to have faith in the gift of tongues and trying to rely on the Lord to help me learn the language. I´m working hard, chugging away at it everyday! Getting better!

Funny moment. At church on Sunday, the building we go to is right by a street in the city, so you can hear music and traffic. This girl was giving a talk, and then "This girl is on fire" comes on the radio and is SO loud. We all start laughing and they close the windows (not many places here have air conditioning). It was great.

So on Friday we got a new teacher, Hno. Whittacker. His sister is in the Omaha, NE mission! So if you see her, let her know! But he was our first investigator, Pedro. Talk about confusing! He´s now one of our investigators, Esteban. Our other teacher is the other one. I´m having a hard time thinking of the investigators as real people  since it´s just my teachers acting. But I´m praying for that love for them and thinking the situation is real, so I can get the most out of the experience as I can and that I can really teach by the Spirit. We´ll see!

Sunday was fantastic! A feast. Thanksgiving! IN RS, I came to the realization that the BOM is symbolism for our lives. It contains 1/100th of all the records, and it symbolizes things that are going on in our lives. 1 Nephi 17 and 18. The building of the ship. It can symbolize our missions, marriages, callings, and other things in our lives. It was so cool!

Also, we watched an old MTC devotional from Oct. 2012 with Elder Bednar. Holy cow, was it awesome! He talked about how he studies conference talks. Needless to say, I got some really awesome inspiration from it! 

I´m running out of time, but I´m just so glad that I have the chance to be a part of this work. It is God´s work, and I´m so grateful that He trusted me to do a little bit of that work. I´m here for 1/2 the time Christ did His  ministry. That´s a pretty cool thought!

I love you all! I miss you terribly, but I know that I´m suppose to be here doing this work! Sometimes when I get overwhelmed, I just remember I need to work with the Lord, and I can accomplish everything through Him! I´m not perfect, but He is. Thank goodness!

Thanks for your prayers, your love, and your support. As they say in Spanish, "¡Les quiero!"

Love, Hermana Lau