Happy Thanksgiving! 11/22/2010

Hola Familia!

      It was great to hear about how everyone's doing this week! Especially Kevin's first experience passing the Sacrament! That's so awesome! So before I start the description of my week I have to say that one of my pet peeves is people who are listening to music in the library through headphones but it's so loud that everyone within 20 feet can hear exactly what they are listening to. Some kid on a computer behind me is doing just this at the moment and I think I might go crazy because It sounds like he is listening to early 1990's video game music. Seriously. and right now its sounding really intense so I think it must be at the part at the end of the game where you have to fight the final monster to win the game. But anyways...my week has been good so far! I got the coat you sent me yesterday, I think it's going to be perfect! I tried on all the winter gear I have so far and I have to say I look pretty nerdy, but the colder it gets the less I care. Also I keep hearing about one week last winter where it didn't get above 0 degrees at all. I look forward to it. I sent in my receipt for my checked bags today so I can get a refund! that will be nice.

      Today we only have a few hours to do e-mails and shopping because they are giving us our main p-day tomorrow for Thanksgiving. I think we might go hang out at the church with some other missionaries from the Zone and play sports/board games. A family in the ward is having us over for Thanksgiving dinner and I'm not sure yet whether its going to be traditional food or Mexican food. But either way I'll be happy. We had a zone meeting yesterday and the Mission President talked a lot about the importance people taking steps to find out the truth of our message for themselves, like it says in the promise given in the Intro to the Book of Mormon and in Moroni. The main steps are reading, pondering, and then asking if its true in prayer. If they aren't doing these things we can't really move on because it's so important. We are just the messengers, they need to find out for themselves if its true or not. So me and Hna. Gailey decided to reemphasize this with the people we're teaching even if we've already talked about it.

      Yesterday we had a really good lesson with the Russomano family from Brazil where we talked about this. It's so great because the whole family gets involved in the lessons. They are also probably one of the loudest and most animated families I've ever met too (at least the parents). Also, we haven't taught them the Word of Wisdom yet but both parents have talked about how they want to stop smoking/drinking. I think they are really ready for the Gospel at this point in their lives. Because their main language is Portuguese I have a really hard time trying to understand them, but most of the time I'm still able to get the main idea of what they are saying. I think my Spanish comprehension is improving, I understand the most during teaching situations. Small talk situations are the hardest especially when I'm asked a question. For some reason questions are the hardest to understand, escpecially when directed at me. I'll be understanding everything just fine and then the moment they ask a question I'm like...."ummm" and theres an awkward silence until I turn to my companion to translate what they said for me. Yeah... Church in the Branch here is good, quite a few people show up every Sunday. The past two sundays they've had speakers from the Stake come so I got to hear it in English and then the translation into Spanish. Dad it's funny that you ask if they sing in tune or not. So many people sing REALLY out of tune. And it seems like the ones who can't hit the notes are the loudest. I haven't been asked to speak or anything yet but I was asked to play the Piano in Relief Society...that was a little bit embarrasing because I didn't know what the first song was until they started singing it and they started singing the second song before I got to the Piano and they were really off so when I started playing It made me sound like I was hitting all the wrong notes. I did the top hand only...I definitely need more practice. The Branch President is a really good guy, he wants the Branch to be a Ward soo bad and gets a little frustrated at the members lack of effort to get involved in the missionary work.

      It's also funny soo many people keep making comments about my curly hair. Either that or they are commenting that I look chinese because, as my companion informed me, the word for curly ("chino") also means Chinese. One lady called me "Chinita" which means 'little curly" or I guess "little Chinese girl". So who knows? haha. This week the weather got a little crazy and there was actually a tornado watch, which I've never experienced before. It got pretty stormy but I don't think there was actually a tornado. I decided it would be cool to see one from a distance, but not if it was coming towards me. Well everyone, I hope that you all have a great week! Keep me posted on everything thats going on! congrats Mom on getting accepted into the UW!

Love,

Hermana West

1st day in Chicago! 11/10/10

Hola Familia!

 

     Well, I'm in Illinois now! It so weird to be out of the MTC now, my mind can't really comprehend it all yet but I know I'll adjust. My new companion is Hna. Gailey, She's from San Diego, CA and has been out for almost a year. Her spanish is good so she'll be able to help me out. I'm serving in Carpenterville which is by Elgin. I'm in a spanish branch and there is a set of Elders serving in the same branch. They're working really hard to make it a ward. My companion says there are a lot of Hispanics in the area so that should be good for my Spanish. Most of them are from Mexico and the runner up is people from Guatemala! So that's cool. My companion says that we get fed A LOT here and that I might gain weight...so hopefully not haha. I'll also need to start building up more of a tolerance for spicy food. I don't know much else about the area yet since I've only been here for like 2 hours. My apartment is really small and smells a little bit like cigarette smoke. We also have a car, which is nice, so I wont have to buy a bike at this point. Plus there are two bikes in the apartment anyway. I got my bedding just now but I still need to find boots and a coat. It's not too much of a rush though it's actually been pretty warm today and yesterday. So I might wait until next week to get them when I can think better haha. I live pretty close to a Target, Wal-mart, and a mall so it shouldn't be too much trouble.

 

      Yesterday was pretty neat. After we got to the airport we met President and Sister Doll and the assistants. They took all our stuff and then we took the L-train into Chicago for a little bit of "fear-busting". The challenge was to give away a Book of Mormon. I didn't give mine away but my fist contact was in Spanish! It was hard to understand him due to my lack of comprehension and the noisy train but it went well. He seemed interested in what I had to say and I taught him a little bit about the church. When we got to Chicago we went and ate deep-dish pizza for lunch at "Pizzeria Oro" (I think). It was good! Then we went on a walking tour around Chicago which was really cool. I came in with 16 other missionaries so we must have looked pretty interesting walking around in a huge group. After the tour we took the train to Downers Grove where the mission office and home are. We went to the office first, which, amusingly, is right by a Hooters. We had about an hour of orientation stuff then we went to the mission home, had dinner, and more orientation stuff. We spent the night there too. This morning we had breakfast then went over to the Naperville stake center to meet our trainers.

 

      It was good to talk to you guys yesterday, even if only for a little bit. Oh and the computers at the Library here give us an hour so you can send me e-mails and I'll have time to read them. Also, It's faster if you send letters directly to my apartment rather than to the mission office so i'll give you my current address;

 

562 Lincoln Ave

West Dundee, IL 60118

 

You'll just have to be careful around transfer time in case I get moved. I think theres an option on dearelder where you can put in a different address than the mission office, so do that. If in doubt of transfers though just send it to the mission office. and if other people ask for my address its probably safer for them to send it to the mission office so they don't have to worry about keeping track of where I am. Oh, can you take my MTC address off of Facebook so people don't send me anything there? thanks.

 

Overall, it's really exciting and I think i'm really going to like the area. My old companion, Hna. Maughan got sent to the border of Illinois and Wisconsin in like farm area so I'm sure she had more of a drive than I did, It's weird that I'm not going to be with her anymore. Oh tell Kevin Happy Birthday!! 12 years old I can't believe it. Super exciting. Well I hope this week goes well for everyone, talk to you again next week!

 

Love,

 

Hna. West

Last Day MTC 11/8/2010

Hola Familia!

 

      Today is my last day at the MTC!!!! I am so excited to leave and get to Chicago....though I am less than excited to wake up at 3:15 to be at the Travel office by 4am. When we get to Chicago our mission president is going to take us on a walking tour of Chicago. I'm really excited, I'm also excited for real food. I'm going to try and call from the airport tomorrow but it's going to be early haha. I also might be able to e-mail again on wednesday so I can let you know how my first day in Illinois goes. It's raining today and I decided that it's because Utah is sad to see me go. But the whole week previously has been really warm and sunny, so we'd started to go to the field for gym again which was nice. They have ladder golf (you know that game with the golf balls on strings that you try to throw and get on one of the 3 bars). I also played a little softball on Saturday which was fun but now my arm is sore.

      On wednesday I did that orientation thing where we demonstrate a teaching situation in front of the new missionaries. That was pretty cool, and we got to wear microphones. It was hard though because we had to do it in english...I accidentally said a word in spanish. We had our last TRC on Wednesday but we had to cut it short because I had to go help with the new district that came into my zone on wednesday. It's weird that we are all leaving now. One of the sisters in my district and one of the Elders left this morning so today we have an extra companion (Hna. Putnam). Ben also left this morning for Chile and he says it's going to take him almost a full day to get there from the time he leaves here! Long time. He's seemed really excited. I saw him yesterday and we got a picture finally. I don't have a copy, but my companion used her camera and said she would send it to me. Elder (Travis) Lund got reassigned to Alabama because he still doesn't have his visa for Brazil, same with another friend I know from school (Sister Powell).

      Oh so 3 weeks in a row now for apostles! This Tuesday we had Elder Ballard come and talk to us about becoming expert communicators. It was really good. It's cool because people say that they never get so many in a row. I even heard a rumor that another one is coming tomorrow, but I'll be gone. and I probably wont ever find out haha. This Sunday we had Sheri Dew come and speak to us for the fireside. It was pretty interesting; she talked about the importance of knowing who we are, of understanding exactly what Christ did for us, and being giuded by the Spirit.

      I haven't finished packing yet so I'm not sure if I'll be sending a package home yet, but I think I will probably have to. It will just be a surprise if you get one or not haha. I'm not sure if they let people pick stuff up for us, but I think I'll probably just send it if I need to. I think I'll be fine with the space so I don't think I'll need another suitcase. Today is going to be full of packing and cleaning I suspect. Right now I'm in the Laundry room waiting for my clothes to dry (They have computers in here for us to use). Also Grandma was wondering if she could come wave me off at the Airport, I'm thinking probably not becuase I'll be with a large group of people and they don't like us planning to meet friends/family.

 

Well, thanks again for all your support I really appreciate it! I hope you all have fantastic weeks!

 

Hna West