P-day Email - Provo MTC (Wk 3)

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

MTC picture of Ynez & Taylor

Ynez finally running into her close friend from home in the MTC together (Taylor Case who is leaving to serve in Romania on Monday).

1st P-day email - Provo, MTC (Wk 2)

FAMILYYYYYY!!!!!

Hola de aqui en el CCM!!! (*Hello from here in the MTC)
I have a hard time remembering what happened last week (before I last wrote you) and what happened this week, all the days kind of blurr together... in a good way!

At this point Hermana Tidwell (mi compañera) and I have taught our "investigator", Vicente, 5 times (IN SPANISH). We've got a "solid" 4/5 score as well...unfortunately, we had a lesson monday night then another tues afternoon, and normally we have more time, and a teacher there at some point to help us, but between the two lesson we didn't have either of those things, and in our 4th lesson with Vicente on Tuesday we KINDA crashed and burned, it was tragic, he didn't even accept our challenge (up until then he had accepted all of our challenges)! And the worst part was that another companionship in our district was in there observing. We weren't really sure what happened at the time, but we both understood one thing: the Spirit wasn't there guiding us, so we kind of hung out to dry. Since then we have figured out that the reason that was, was that we didn't use our time as well as we should have in the morning leading up to our lesson, for example, during personal study time (which I understand now is crucial) our district is all kind of messing around a little bit and being chatty instead of getting to it.  In short, Hermana Tidwell and I didn't prepare enough/the way we ahould have. It CRAZY how strong the spirit is here in the MTC, I LOVE IT! But it is also very easy to tell when you have colored outside the lines even just a little bit, because you don't have the Spirit with you as much. Some one said (like the MTC Pres or something) that Obedience brings blessing, but EXACT OBEDIENCE bring miracles, and I have definitely seen that! After our 4th lesson with Vicente, we finally get to meet him as our teacher, Hermano Urquhart. He came into class and taught us the next night. He is a really interesting fellow! He's like OCD and really straight forward/serious, but at the same time he is really funny, he told us that whenever he is being nice it's sincere, but if he is ever being mean, just know that he's joking.  The night after we met him as our teacher, we taught him another lesson, and between the two lessons He and Hermano Stallings (another of our teachers, who is currently a teacher in training) taught us about the importance of personal and companionship study and how we should be using that time not to study for our own benefit, but to study for our investigators needs, like study the material we want to teach them next.  Hermana Tidwell and I worked really hard the next day to use our time the way they taught us to and used our personal and companionship study to study about the comandments, specifically keeping the Sabbath day Holy and following the prophet. Then we also did some more preparation with Hermano Beesten (who is AWESOME) during language study, then we went in with out any notes (like Hermana Jeanfreau challeneged us to on Monday), ready to listen to Vicente and teach by the Spirit. The lesson went GREAT! Last lesson our challenge was for him to come to church this week and he said, "No, I;m busy (in spanish)." But then when we taught him more about the commandment and listened to him so that we could better understand how we could help him understand why he would want to do that in his life, we asked him some great questions and related the blessing of keeping the sabbath day holy to his life, THEN challened him again to come to church this Sunday and he instantly said yes! ... I guess his plans magically fell through. ;)  Tomorrow we are planning on challenging Him to be baptized! Wish us luck! lol So after our lesson ended, Vicente put his Hermano Urquhart "hat" back on and gave us some feedback, he even complimented us on how well we related why the priciple of keeping the sabbath day holy was important in his life!

HOLY CROW I JUST REALIZED I ONLY HAVE 4 MINUTES LEFT! AHHH 30 mins is NO time at all! lol

ummmmm... what else? I LOVE my district, sometimes I think we have a little too much fun, or too many jokes! LOL  But it makes the time here in the MTC more enjoyable. OK so after our whole experience with Vicente and trying studying differently I understand and LOVE Doctrine & Covenants 84:85***, it is SOOOOOO true! and being a missionary is AWESOME!!! I love it SO much!

Well... it's about that time! I LOVE YOU SOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH! and miss you like CRAZY!!!!!!!!! Hasta luego mi familia. XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

***Doctrine & Covenants 84:85 reads as follows:
85 the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man. 
86 Therefore, let no man among you, for this commandment is unto all the faithful who are called of God in the church unto the ministry, from this hour take purse or scrip, that goeth forth to proclaim this gospel of the kingdom. 
87 Behold, I send you out to reprove the world of all their unrighteous deeds, and to teach them of a judgment which is to come. 
88 And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up. 
89 Whoso receiveth you receiveth me; and the same will feed you, and clothe you, and give you money. 
90 And he who feeds you, or clothes you, or gives you money, shall in nowise lose his reward. 
91 And he that doeth not these things is not my disciple; by this you may know my disciples.

Fri 3/08/2013 (AM) hand written letter (Wk 2)

Fri.(A.M), 3/08/2013

Hola de el CCM.  Como estan uds?  Les extrano mucho mucho mucho!  Estoy muy agradecido por todas las cartas!  Progreso poco a poco en espanol, mis maestros son increible!  Mucho ha paso despues de la ultima carta.  No se como puedo compartir todo que yo quiero, pero voy a hacer el mejor que puedo.

Translation: (*Hello from the MTC. How are you guys?  I miss you guys a lot, lot, lot. I am very grateful for all of the letters!  I progress little by little with Spanish, my teachers are incredible.  A lot has happened since my last letter.  I don't know how to share everything that want, but I am going to do the best I can.)

The reason I'm writing you as well as emailing later is because I don't think I could say everything i want in just 30 min on the computer and you know me, I like to tell you guys EVERYTHING!  It's hard only having 30 min to email...and also, you can't draw pictures when you send email.  I drew you a picture.  I think Zoe will appreciate it the most...in fact, I think I'll just write to her on the back of it. 

I was just realizing after I got back from the temple that I'm  kind of getting over my homesickness, but not being able to talk you like...at all...is catching up w/ me so I can't express howmuch it means getting letters from you like every day.  I seriously LOVE it...it gets me through. :)  Going to the temple was wonderful, but at the same time, it made it kind of tough  because before this morning, I'd never gone to the temple without my Mom.  After going to the temple, I have most of the day for myself.

I got your care package, it came just in time for P-day :)  THANK YOU!!!!!  I also got the stuff from Gma Lynn.  Tell her thank you for me.

Can you please tell everyone and post on Facebook that if they want me to be able to write them back, they need to put their address in their letter (HOWEVER, as much as I appreciate getting letters and feeling the love and support, while I'm here in the MTC, having time to write other people back is really hard to come by...at least for now.  There just isn't enough time as is and with what little time I do have, I want to spend every second possible on talking to you guys).

I had a super special experience during mission conference on Sunday.  One of those experiences that is so sacred to you that, as much as you want to share it, you know you need to be careful about who you share it with.  So, I wrote it in my journal and waited all the way until today to tell ANYONE, and I just want to make sure you appreciate how hard that was for me.  You know I like to share things with people RIGHT AWAY and I almost died having  to hold it in until today (but I did it).  So I'm going to go to the copy shop later and copy my journal entry (so I don't have to write it over again) and send it with this letter.

I met three Hermanas here who got here on the same day as my district and who are going to Concepcion but are leaving on Monday (the 11th) three days from now.  They are in the advanced Spanish class.  One of the Sister's last names is Call so I told her we are probably related.  We figured out we are both descendents of Anson Call (cousins"ish"! LOL).  She is so cool though.  I love her and the other two, I hope we end up companions!!!

All my love,
Hermana Davis 

2nd Letter - Provo, MTC (Wk 1)

Sabado, Segundo de Marzo (9:00 am)

Dear Mom and Dad,

THANK YOU SOOO  MUCH for your letters!  I can’t tell you how much it means and how much it helps me to hear from you… and mom, don’t apologize for writing more than once a week.  I LOVE IT!  Especially this early on!  It helps me a lot to hear that you guys have been struggling, because I have too! A LOT! Knowing that you pray for me a cajillion times a day is also so helpful!  I love you SO much and I can’t express how grateful I am from all the support I have coming from home! Again, it means a LOT.  More than I can adequately express!

                Today we have a ½ P-day (for our ½ week here).  I actually just got your letters last night because our District Leader, Elder Isrealson, is the one who has to get the mail and before yesterday he was unaware he was DL.  I didn’t mind so much getting them late because when he finally brought us all the mail I had like 5 letters!  All anyone else had was 1 or 2; everyone was jealous!!! :).

                I’ve actually been struggling a lot, I think mostly because I’m home sick. It’s really comforting to know you guys miss me like crazy too because I kind of felt like a crazy person, like: why am I having such a hard time?!?! I haven’t even been away from my family for 10 minutes, 3 hours, 10 hours, 28 hours, 2 days, etc.  I’m hoping this is the kind of situation where things get easier with time, they seem to be so far!  It’s like they say in the movie “The Other Side of Heaven”: “sometimes the Lord calms the sailor, sometimes he calms the storm….and sometimes he just lets us swim.”   I kind of feel like Heavenly Father is letting me swim this time as far as homesickness and feeling maxed out and like this is SOOOO HARD!  But in ways it’s been a great blessing because he hasn’t left me alone to swim.  The Lord has taken this opportunity to show me all His tender mercies, such as bumping into friends at the cafeteria at various time that help brighten my day, or another example, yesterday, during part of our 500 hours of personal or additional study time, 3 Hermanas’ stopped by from the advanced class, they had gotten here Wednesday and are leaving in 12 days!  The 3 of them are also going to the Concepcion, Chile mission, that’s why they stopped by, because all 6 of us Hermanas in my district are going to Concepcion on the same day.  So, although the Lord hasn’t taken my burdens/trials from me, He has definitely shown His hand and let me know that I’m not alone and that He is right there with me to help me through.

                Another thing that is a blessing is that I’m so busy I don’t have time to think about myself!  And because of that, I don’t have time to realize/think about how much I miss you!  The only personal time I get (on a normal day) is 1 hour before going to bed and in that time I have to shower, dry my hair, get ready for bed, write in my journal and pray.  I Love the time for myself, but it’s kind of rough having time to think at the END of the day when I’m exhausted in every way and my resolve, will power and positive attitude are all completely spent, because I find myself feeling sorry for myself for how hard this all is and how much I miss my family.  The first 2 nights I cried, or should I say the 1^st night I bawled (well as much as you can bawl without causing a scene in a dead silent 1 room apartment with 5 other girls in it), and the second night I just cried a LITTLE bit.  Last night I didn’t cry at all though!  I actually went to bed happy!  Tired, but happy!  Each day things get a little easier; I get a little more familiar and comfortable with the schedule, mi companera and the other Sisters and Elders in my district.  It was funny sitting in the cafeteria @ meal time the 1^st two days because you could easily tell who had been there for a week or more and who was brand new.  All the new elders and sisters looked like zombies; we just sat there in silence, eyes glazed over, eating our food, while everyone else sat together talking and laughing. Every day though, we get more light-hearted and we joke around a lot more.

                My district actually has 6 sisters, all going to Concepcion together, Hermana Tidwell, Hermana Hall, Hermana Woodbury, Hermana Housley, Hermana Phelps and Me!   All of us are 19 except Hermana Hall who is 20 and Hermana Phelps who is 23.  Everyone is from Utah except Hermana Phelps, who from Minnesota, and me!  My companion H. Tidwell is actually from Provo!  She’s easy to get along with.  There are 4 Elders in our district and they’re all around 19 and they are so rambunctious…  …most of the time it’s funny, except when we are trying to study and they won’t shut up. LOL

                Tenemos muchos chistes. (*We have a lot of jokes)  They’re all so stupid, but that’s just what happens when you’ve got ten 19-23 year olds stuck in a room together for hours on end trying to learn Spanish.  Our district motto, the 2^nd day we got here, we decided was “Verdad!”  (*That’s true!)  …with one fist in the air.  So every time we were frustrated, dumb founded, or the teacher, Hermana JeanFreau, asked us or told us something in Spanish that went way over our heads someone would say …”Verdad!” and we’d all start cracking up.  Then, the next day I suggested we change it to “Adelante!” which, according to the dictionary, means “onward”, everyone liked the idea so now we say that in place of “Verdad”. Also, just between us sisters, we came up with a new inside joke.  Yesterday Hermana Tidwell was asking something about the food we were eating being made of soy, Like the bacon or something so when she said “soy bacon”.  Hermana Phelps looked at her really funny and then explained to us how her brain was so stuck in Spanish mode it sounded like Hermana Tidwell was saying “I am bacon” (*soy means “I am” in Spanish) so we all started busting up and saying everything “soy” we could think of to see how it would sound, when I thought of soy nuts, so I was Like “Hermanas, Hermanas! Soy…Nuts!” and we all started laughing even harder!! So every time we mention soy nuts we all snicker.

                Nuestra Maestra (*Our teacher), Hermana Jean Freau seems like 23, she served in Phoenix Arizona.  All of the teachers here are really young; I think they’re all recently returned missionaries.

                So here at the MTC you don’t really get much “frying pan” time, they throw you STRAIGHT into the fire!  Yesterday morning, Hermana Tidwell and I taught our first lesson to an investigator (who is secretly our next teacher, Hermano Urquhart)… in SPANISH!  It went surprisingly well though in our preparation to teach Hermana Tidwell and I Kind of wrote out a script as to what to say, what questions to ask, etc.  Then we talked to some 1-week-in missionaries who said DON’T READ FROM A SCRIPT!!! It will go terrible! It’s better to use Spanglish and have the Spirit than to read from a script.  If you do that you won’t have the Spirit.  So each companionship was given 30 minutes with Vicente (investigator) to teach.  Hermana Tidwell and I took up like 28 minutes; everyone else was finished after like 10.  I really felt good when we were done.  I did most of the talking because Hermana Tidwell isn’t as experienced in Spanish as I am, she has a harder time (but she’s a trooper!) I felt like the Spirit was definitely there and helping a lot!  We ended up breaking away from our script a majority of the time and saying things and answering questions that we hadn’t planned on.  Somehow the spirit helped me remember words and things from high school!  I know my Spanish, my grammar, and my conjugation were all horrid but the cool thing was that I was able to find ways to say things, from words I could remember (completely wrong) that were in the ball park enough that he could understand what we were trying to teach.  Some of the one week in missionaries said Spanglish was good… he’d let them get away with it when they didn’t know certain words.  Even the elders in our district who went before us said he let then get away with some Spanglish but I only tried to use English words like 3 times (in 30 minutes), but he wouldn’t let me get away with it, he’d say “no entiendo” (*I don’t understand).  So I had to search and fumble for other ways to say things, but I walked away taking that as a compliment, that he knew I could do it and that I had a good enough grasp to communicate…enough.  Today, in the evening we teach Vicente again.  I think I’m MORE nervous this time LOL.  We’ll see how it goes!  I THINK I’m the one with the best grasp of Spanish in our class/district (synonymous), besides Hermana Phelps, she took Spanish in college and over all she took like 8 years (between high school and college).

                I’ve seen a couple friends so far. I saw Daniel (Elder Watts) the kid from O.C.;  I saw Austin (Elder) Fields yesterday, that was probably the most exciting…the Hermanas in my district said it was funny watching because it was obvious we both wanted to hug each other (but honestly it was more him than me)! And he’s been here 2 weeks! Lol   I went straight for a hand shake while he almost went for a hug!  I also saw Devin a girl from my FHE group last semester, LOVE HER.  She’s going to Russia. Oh, and I saw Elder Smith (Taylor’s BF), but I haven’t seen Taylor yet :( our meal times don’t overlap.

                So, the company what do you mean it’s not doing well? How so? I will make sure and find out how to say it in Spanish so I can add it to my prayers (Hermana Jean Freau promised us I few would try and pray in Spanish now on Heavenly Father would bless us so much more with el don de lengas (*the gift of tongues))

               I love you all soooooo much (x infinity) and miss all your faces right off! Hug the dog for me, keep him alive! Thanks a million for the letters keep em coming! Oh, p-day from now on is Friday so I’ll email you then!

All My LOVE….XOXOXOXOXO……..DAVIS DYNASTY!!!!

Hermana Davis

P.S. I wrote you another letter this week at night in my personal time. I thought I’d throw it in just for kicks so you can see the dramatic difference between 2 days (I can see why they don’t want us emailing our 1^st week here LOL) but ignore the negativity the in the other letter, I’m working HARD I’m always tired, but I’m GREAT! <3

1st Letter - Provo, MTC (Wk 1)

Thursday 2/28/13


Querida Familia,

Hola! Como Estan?  I miss you so much its crazy!  I almost cry every time I think about it, but luckily I don’t have much time to think about it.  As you know, I can’t email this week; my P-day isn’t until next Friday, so that’s when you should be expecting my first email.  Since we can’t email this week our MTC president told us to write home (but from now on I can only write on P-day, of course).  When I do email I will try to do so in the morning or just sometime when I’m not exhausted, frustrated, & maxed out.  I just want to warn you, that is how I feel right now.  It’s just kind of what happens at the end of the day. :P  So take everything I say with a grain of salt.  I guess everyone just keeps saying, the 1^st couple days are ROUGH, just get to Sunday and things will start getting easier.    I’m looking forward to that, because honestly, it is TOUGH!  But I guess it’s good because it’s training us and preparing us for the field.  There are 6 Hermanas (*Sister Missionaries) and 4 elders in my district.  All 6 Hermanas are going to my mission; we all reported in and are leaving the same day! How cool is that??? 3 of the Elders are going to Resistencia, Argentina. 5 of the sisters are 19 (or 20) and one is 23 and way better at Spanish than the rest of us.  Mi comanera’s nombre es (*my companion’s name is) Hermana Tidwell.  She’s from here in Provo. I like her. 

Tomorrow morning we’ll teach our 1^st investigator a lesson….in SPANISH! HELP ME! LOL   But so far the two of us work pretty well together.  El Espititu Santo (*the Holy Spirit) is so strong here, and Heavenly Father is looking out for me taking good care of me.  He’s helping me become better.  Better times are ahead to look forward to.  It’s just weird not being able to pick up the phone and tell you about anything & everything I want, especially since so much is going on.

                It’s really hard, but things are good, and they’re going to get better. Con tiempo (*with time):).  I have seen so many tender mercies, Heavenly Father probably thinks I’m so ungrateful right now because of my not so great attitude.  But It’s just RIGHT NOW, promise!  During the day I’m fine, and I do my best and work hard.  It’s just that at the end of the day - I’m done.  Please, don’t read this to anyone outside CLOSE FRIENDS AND FAMILY, I’d hate for anyone to know I’m not perfect :).  Miss you TONS, love you even more! Hasta Luego.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX….(TIMES INFINITY)

Hermana Davis