Week 5

Hola!

time has gone by so fast, im already on week five. i leave for Chile in around 10 days! 

this week has been a blur. 

the district above us left for their missions this past monday so now we are the oldest missionaries in our zone. it was so sad to say goodbye. we got pretty close with the hermanas, now there are only Hna Coombs and me and two other hermanas below us. We took pictures and wrote each other little notes of encouragement. ill try to attach pictures. 

I gave a talk in church this past sunday. they have this whole system where everyone writes a five minute talk in spanish and then they randomly pick people to speak during the meeting. i got picked. i talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ and repentance. i think it went pretty well. first time giving a talk in spanish!

P days are both wonderful and aweful all at the same time. i love relaxing and emailing and hanging out with my district but after emailing pdays are the time when im most homesick. last p day we played a new game called 3 kick kill with our district for two hours it was super fun. then there was more volleyball. always more volleyball. we found some new Latino friends to play with us!

Hna Coombs and i made Latina friends, we call them our homies. they are so cute and hilarious and sweet and patient with our spanish. Hna Callauga from Peru and Hna Auguiña from Mexico. we sit with them at lunch sometimes and see them around campus. they are our favorites. the first time we met they had me sing to them cause Hna Coombs told them i could sing well. they said they went home and wrote about it in their journals. so cute! we took pics with them today too. 

we have TRC now which is where we get to teach real ´people who volunteer. or if not real then other missionaries who volunteer and pretend. thats my favorite time to teach because its less focused on having a really set plan and more on getting to know someone new and teaching to needs. I think im really starting to love teaching. 

we have something called Peve which is preparation day eve. we celebrate it every wednesday night as a zone. last night we played spanish jeopardy as a district and then gospel jeapordy as a zone. so much fun. the elders in our district have this game going with a points system of trying to steal eachothers name tags. its hilarious. 

i miss singing and dancing a lot. dancing specifically because i cant do it here haha. and every friday or saturday night we can here the fiesta music outside the ccm walls. it makes me miss dancing so much haha. I can still sing though. I sing hymns a lot and hna coombs and elder Neeley always start harmonizing with me and its great. 

a hermana in our  casa is going home today. shes been sick for the past two weeks. shes in the same district as our roommates Hna Wilemon and hna Moses. its so sad, im going to really miss her. now Wilemon, Moses and the other companion are going to be trio and they are moving into the other room so hna Coombs and i are going to be all alone in our room. we´re disappointed. we´re going to miss coming home to them at night. 

Im learning a lot and loving it here. Hna Coombs and i are getting a little antsy though, we want to get out to chile asap. im still very frightened of the idea of Chile but im excited to start teaching real people. I know that this church is true and i know that i am meant to be here. never once has the thought of going home crossed my mind. The Lord blesses me with miracles everyday. Im so happy to have the gift and opportunity to be a representative of Jesus Christ. 

love, 

Hermana Williams

Our Latina "Homies"

more hermanas, Hna Price ( had a byu class with her) and hna Armstrong

the hermanas above us we had to say goodbye to. Hermana Merril and hna Osborne

Half way there. . .

Hola familia y amigos!

 

The days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days here. Time has flown by, I´m already halfway through which seems so fast but it also feels like i´ve been here for months. i´ll try to remember everything that happened this week but sorry if it isn´t much detail. 

friday and saturdays last forever because its hard to go back to class after pday. but sundays are the best and monday, wednesday, friday are a blur. 

this sunday i was able to sing in sacrament meeting with hermana Coombs, elder neeley, elder dyal and elder dickson. we sang nearer my God to thee in spanish. we were all able to harmonize and elder dyal played a sweet arrangement on the piano. it was so much fun. it felt good to sing again. 

for sunday devotional we watched the video of elder Holland speaking at the provo mtc. it was soooo good. i love elder holland so much. it was all about being better missionaries with pmg and then at the end he shared the story from the new testament when Christ asks Peter three times if he loves him. he said that we have to commit everything to the Lord. we cant go back or dwell on our old life. we have to love the Lord with all our heart might mind and strength. we aren{t just missionaries for two years, we are disciples of Jesus Christ for eternity. it got me so pumped to be a missionary. 

class is pretty much the same, sometimes it feels like im back in high school spanish class haha. but our district has so much fun. i know that i talk about how great they are in every email but its so true. I love everyone in our district so much, the elders have become like brothers to me and it just makes being here so much better, easier and the idea of leaving so much harder. 

we still play lots of volleyball everyday. we had some latino elders that played with us and they were so much fun. we called them our homies. they left this past monday for their missions though and we already miss them. they made playing way more exciting. hna coombs and i were able to take pictures with them, along with our latina friends in our casa. ill try to send you the pics. 

last night we played spanish jeapordy to study as a district and it was the best. we all got into it. it felt like i was hanging out with my best friends. the district has started playing the dart game where you shoot imaginary darts at people if you make eye contact and they have to freeze until someone comes and pulls the dart out. we even got our afternoon teacher hermana garcia to play too haha. 

we taught our pretend investigator Rosa the other day and she (hermana garcia) really liked our lesson. we had drawn and cut out little pictures to help explain the plan of salvation and laid them out while we taught. she liked it so much she took a picture with her phone haha. teaching and spanish has been getting easier. i don{t understand grammar very well though. or at least the mechanics behind it. but overall we´ve been pleased with our ability to teach. and its all because of the holy ghost =)

Hermana Coombs is the best. seriously i love her. there are some hermanas in our room that are struggling and i thank Heavenly Father every night that i got hna Coombs because she is so easy to work with and we have so much fun together. i feel so grateful. 

Hermana Coombs and some elders have been getting lots of letter and packages in the mail... im not saying, im just sayin... =)

I had a dream the other night that Scottie was in the CCM with me and i got soooo excited. it made me miss him a lot though. 

SHOUT OUT TO KALENE! you´re the best, thanks for sending me that email. i miss you tons. 

SINA woman, thanks for emailing me. have fun at school. 

MOM AND DAD the pictures are fantastic, thanks so much for sending them. they made my day. i love the one with mom looking out the window of the room i stayed in, my heart filled with joy knowing that youre now seeing all the same things i have. isnt saint malo just the most amazing place in the world? oh those pictures make me want to be there with you so much. tell Oceane and Pascale i say hi and i love them very much and thank you for hosting you. im glad you all had the chance to go to church, that must have been so cool for all of you. oceane has a boyfriend? so exciting! tell her i want an email with all the details haha. 

i know i´ve only been here three weeks and i´m not even out in the field yet but i already feel so blessed and overjoyed for the opportunity to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. I have moments when i realize that i can think of no greater joy that to be able to tell someone that their deceased loved one is not lost forever, than to tell a husband and wife that their love can last through eternity. to tell a family that they can be together forever. to tell a grieving mother that her baby is waiting for her in the arms of God. I can think of no greater joy than to watch the same gospel that has blessed my life since the day i was born, work miracles in the lives of others. 

it will be hard to leave the ccm but i am so excited to be a representative of Jesus Christ and share His gospel to the people of Chile. 

miss you all! lots of love!

Hermana Williams

Hola familia y amigos

Hola familia y amigos!

i cant believe its already been week. its gone by so fast but sooooo slow. this week has been about tiny miracles and big blessings.

my first full day in the ccm was the longest day in my life. by 10:30am i was ready for dinner and then bed. it was filled with meetings, orientation, registration, and practicing spanish. 

i have good and bad days with spanish. sometimes i feel like i totally understand everything my instructor is saying and other times i have no idea whats going on. my spanish has gotten better, though, i know all the gospel words and i can usually follow along word for word when people speak to me. speaking it to other people is a different story though.

i saw kaelee carlson and she stopped by my house in the ccm and brought me chokis which are like cookies. i also saw tristan hovenden.

I live in what they call the casas here. they{re like little houses with five bedrooms that can house four hermanas with bunkbeds. 

okay so let me tell you about my companion Hermana Coombs: she is from chicago, she just did a year at byu and lived in helaman. she plays lots of sports. and she is absolutely fantastic. i love her so much. she is so kind and considerate. she is very patient with me and everyone else. we also have lots of fun together. our personalities mesh well. were not into a lot of the same stuff but we get along cause we have the same spiritual goals. she is the best. she makes me want to be a better person. im so happy i have her, she is a big blessing. i wish i could be just like her because she deserves a better companion than me. 

a basic day at the ccm is we wake up and study for an hour, eat breakfast,then sit in class for three hours with our teacher Hermano Salvador. He is amazing and so hilarious, we all love him a lot. he helps us with teaching and spanish. 

my district is the best! i love them so much! we are the only hermanas and then we have four sets of elders. they're all going to peru, and equador. oh and hma coombs is also going to chile osorno, plus she said she had book of mormon with scott at byu!

our district has so much fun, it took the elders a couple days to stop being scared to talk to us hermanas. but we have bonded so much just within the past week. it makes me excited to have five more weeks with them and to get even closer. 

oh one of the elders in my district was one of my fhe brothers at byu! Elder Neeley, Jared neeley, we were so excited to be in the same group. and another fhe brother, phil fancher was in our zone. 

i pray so much here. more than i ever had in my entire life. it's an adjustment but i like it and i've learned that i need to invite the spirit in everything i do and what that means and how i recognize it. the spirit plays such a vital role in my job as a missionary. 

thanks dad and evan for the espistles they were great. 

the food isn't that good here, nothing that i get that excited about. most everyone gets snacks and treats at the little tienda they have here on campus.

I'm slowly but surely learning how to teach. we've been teaching a pretend investigator, Gaby. she is just a teacher here pretending to take the discussions. but we have to prepare and study and pray as if she is an actual investigator. we taught our first lesson in spanish on friday. it was scary but we got more and more used to it. we learned to not script our exactly what to say but to let the spirit guide us. in those moments is when little miracles happened like i was able to understand her fast spanish or i was able to bear my testimony all in spanish without hesitating. it was great. 

sundays are great, they're nice little breaks. sacrament meeting is in spanish. I hadnt cried at the ccm yet until sunday when they sang a childs prayer and it wasn't sad it was the spirit and it was wonderful and i used dad's handkerchief. we don't have class afterwards, but we do still have to study. we have relief society and devotional. yes i met with my branch president, he is very nice and funny. 

we got to watch a video on sunday, the testaments. it was great. 

i saw charlie roll last night! it was great he went in for the hug but remembered that wasn't allowed haha. it made my day to see him. 

my district went to the temple today for p day. the temple is closed for remodeling so we couldn't do a session but they let us tour the visitor center which is super cool, best visitor center i've ever seen. and i bought my first souvenir, one of those colorful woven cloth backpacks. hma coombs and i bought matching ones. 

we took pictures as a district. all the elders wore purple ties and hermana coombs and i matched with blue and mustard yellow, i borrowed a cardigan from her. i will try to upload some photos. 

sorry this is so messy and fast and long but i wanted to make sure and get everything down in writing before my time was up. i miss you all so much. mom i miss being able to talk with you and text you little things about my day. i miss hanging out with you and dad. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU LOTS

thanks evan and lizzie for coming up to see me before i left, it meant a lot and i miss you a bunch. i use the little journal you gave me everyday. 

thanks for all the wonderful emails from my amigos, sorry if i wasn't able to send you a personal email but know that i read them and i really appreciate all the love! Baylee and Ethan you guys are the best. 

to my missionaries clark, carolyn, kaylyn, sarah, lizzie, and maya: i miss you guys a ton. sorry if i don't have time to send you a personal email. know that i'm excited to be a missionary and i hope everything is going okay for all of you. 

It was hard being here for the first couple days but the Lord really blessed me with a calm heart and a great district. there were days and hours of sadness, incompetence and discouragement. but when i feel the holy spirit my heart swells and i feel overwhelming peace and i swear i am the happiest i have ever been in my entire life. that's how i know i'm supposed to be here. i have yet to cry of sadness, only tears of eternal joy from my heavenly father. i know that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world and that i am a representative of him and his church. I feel such an honor to be called a servant of the Lord. I love this church with all my heart and i know that it is true. 

i love you all so much.

love, Hermana Williams