Mi Querida Familia,
Hola! Como estan ustedes?
Primero, algunos chistes:
Porque huele bien Superman?... Por Superfume!
Que hace un pez?... Nada!!
(Dad: Have fun trying to translate those and explain why they are funny in english! ;P haha LOVE YOU!)
******* Dad's translation (and best attempt to explain a Spanish play on words): **********
My Beloved Family,
Hello! How are you guys?
First, a couple of jokes:
Why does superman smell good?...Because of his perfume!
("super" means the same in Spanish & English; in Spanish, when you put the words "his" & "perfume" together, it forms the word "super" - therefore, "super"man uses "super"fume.
What does a fish do?...Nothing!!
(In Spanish, you say, "It swims", by using the same word as, "Nothing")
********************************************************************************
So, in English those jokes would probably not be funny at all, but one thing my district and I have realized over the past 2 1/2 weeks of being in the MTC and TRYING to learn a foreign language, is that EVERYTHING is funnier in Spanish.
This week has been really great! Long... But great! Every single day this week when it got down to like the last 30 min - hour before personal/bed time I definitely felt spent and was just trying to push through the last part of the day and keep on task. Luckily for me, our district spends the last hour of the day reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish (for 30 min) and then planning. When we read in Spanish we each take a turn reading a verse in spanish, then with out looking at the translation in English, we try to decipher what the verse is saying. Progress here SEEMS so slow to us because we are right in the middle of it, little by little, one day at a time, but I guess doing this everyday has really helped us a lot. Yesterday for the end of class time with our teacher Hermano Urquhart, we went outside to read the Book of Mormon in Spanish as a class (because the weather is FINALLY getting nice). As we are reading with Hermano Urquhart, taking turns as companionships to translate each verse, he is continually surprised at how well each of us is doing at translating so quickly... although we wanted him to just think we were all incredible at spanish by some miracle, we shared the secret that we had been reading as a class every night. He was "so proud"! ;)
This past monday we had a "fast" from english, it was ROUGH! but I think we all did really well for our first time trying to have a fast from english! We all made it to like 4pm without having to say more than like 3 words in English (I'll be honest tho, there wasn't a lot of chit chat all morning), and by the end of the day we had all worked so hard at it that our brains were all fried! It was cool tho seeing how hard we could work and how diligent we can be, not to mention that there's NO way we all could have done that well a week before!
Hermana Tidwell and I taught Vicente again this past week, only once! We taught him about the importance of baptism and related the blessings and importance of having the Gift of the Holy Ghost to his life. Our teachers have been working hard this week to teach us how to really LISTEN to the investigator and understand what they are feeling, then listen to the Holy Ghost to know how you can relate what you are trying to teach them to their life in such a way that it will REALLY help and bless their life and help them come closer to Christ. Any way, I feel like Hermana Tidwell and I are improving a LOT in that area, and as a result, at the end of our lesson when we invited Vicente to be baptised he told us that He doesn't feel ready but that he would like to be baptized and keep being taught by us so that we can all work together at helping him feel truly converted to Christ and feeling ready for the covenant of bastism. We are kinda stoked.
Also, we have a new investigator (Hermano Stallings), his name is "Felipe". We actually had to do a fake tract into him experience, it was pretty funny because when we knocked on the door he opened it just enough for his face to show. He stood there in the door like that talking to us for what felt like forever! He was like, "Why are you here?", "What do you want?", "Why are you asking me all these questions?" So then we explained and told him that we wanted to share a message with him about Jesus Christ (and now remember, this is actually our teacher acting as an investigator), and he's like, "OK... Well, what's the message??" Like he wanted us to stand right there in the door way and share our message with him! The best part is the door was actually a door to a classroom so we are standing there in the hallyway like weirdos trying to get inside our fake investigators "house", meanwhile, all these other missionaries are walking by and probably chuckling to themselves like, "Man, I'm so glad that's not me!" LOL But anyways, it was kinda fun, definitely interesting, and we sure learned a lot about contacting people REAL quickly!
UH oh, got to go. Well, I love you!!!! Take care! Miss you!! XOXOXOXOXOXOX
-Hermana Davis
P.S. more coming in a letter XOXOXOX
Hola! Como estan ustedes?
Primero, algunos chistes:
Porque huele bien Superman?... Por Superfume!
Que hace un pez?... Nada!!
(Dad: Have fun trying to translate those and explain why they are funny in english! ;P haha LOVE YOU!)
******* Dad's translation (and best attempt to explain a Spanish play on words): **********
My Beloved Family,
Hello! How are you guys?
First, a couple of jokes:
Why does superman smell good?...Because of his perfume!
("super" means the same in Spanish & English; in Spanish, when you put the words "his" & "perfume" together, it forms the word "super" - therefore, "super"man uses "super"fume.
What does a fish do?...Nothing!!
(In Spanish, you say, "It swims", by using the same word as, "Nothing")
********************************************************************************
So, in English those jokes would probably not be funny at all, but one thing my district and I have realized over the past 2 1/2 weeks of being in the MTC and TRYING to learn a foreign language, is that EVERYTHING is funnier in Spanish.
This week has been really great! Long... But great! Every single day this week when it got down to like the last 30 min - hour before personal/bed time I definitely felt spent and was just trying to push through the last part of the day and keep on task. Luckily for me, our district spends the last hour of the day reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish (for 30 min) and then planning. When we read in Spanish we each take a turn reading a verse in spanish, then with out looking at the translation in English, we try to decipher what the verse is saying. Progress here SEEMS so slow to us because we are right in the middle of it, little by little, one day at a time, but I guess doing this everyday has really helped us a lot. Yesterday for the end of class time with our teacher Hermano Urquhart, we went outside to read the Book of Mormon in Spanish as a class (because the weather is FINALLY getting nice). As we are reading with Hermano Urquhart, taking turns as companionships to translate each verse, he is continually surprised at how well each of us is doing at translating so quickly... although we wanted him to just think we were all incredible at spanish by some miracle, we shared the secret that we had been reading as a class every night. He was "so proud"! ;)
This past monday we had a "fast" from english, it was ROUGH! but I think we all did really well for our first time trying to have a fast from english! We all made it to like 4pm without having to say more than like 3 words in English (I'll be honest tho, there wasn't a lot of chit chat all morning), and by the end of the day we had all worked so hard at it that our brains were all fried! It was cool tho seeing how hard we could work and how diligent we can be, not to mention that there's NO way we all could have done that well a week before!
Hermana Tidwell and I taught Vicente again this past week, only once! We taught him about the importance of baptism and related the blessings and importance of having the Gift of the Holy Ghost to his life. Our teachers have been working hard this week to teach us how to really LISTEN to the investigator and understand what they are feeling, then listen to the Holy Ghost to know how you can relate what you are trying to teach them to their life in such a way that it will REALLY help and bless their life and help them come closer to Christ. Any way, I feel like Hermana Tidwell and I are improving a LOT in that area, and as a result, at the end of our lesson when we invited Vicente to be baptised he told us that He doesn't feel ready but that he would like to be baptized and keep being taught by us so that we can all work together at helping him feel truly converted to Christ and feeling ready for the covenant of bastism. We are kinda stoked.
Also, we have a new investigator (Hermano Stallings), his name is "Felipe". We actually had to do a fake tract into him experience, it was pretty funny because when we knocked on the door he opened it just enough for his face to show. He stood there in the door like that talking to us for what felt like forever! He was like, "Why are you here?", "What do you want?", "Why are you asking me all these questions?" So then we explained and told him that we wanted to share a message with him about Jesus Christ (and now remember, this is actually our teacher acting as an investigator), and he's like, "OK... Well, what's the message??" Like he wanted us to stand right there in the door way and share our message with him! The best part is the door was actually a door to a classroom so we are standing there in the hallyway like weirdos trying to get inside our fake investigators "house", meanwhile, all these other missionaries are walking by and probably chuckling to themselves like, "Man, I'm so glad that's not me!" LOL But anyways, it was kinda fun, definitely interesting, and we sure learned a lot about contacting people REAL quickly!
UH oh, got to go. Well, I love you!!!! Take care! Miss you!! XOXOXOXOXOXOX
-Hermana Davis
P.S. more coming in a letter XOXOXOX
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