Halfway There!

If any of you were anxiously awaiting the newest installment from Hermana Weatherford, I apologize. I was a little teary this time around...took me a while to get ahold of myself. Yeah, I'm a mushy mom...but here's her letter, tell me how you do!

So today marks my 3 week period in the CCM. It's so crazy to think I'll be out in the field in 3 weeks! Ack!
 

Things here are pretty uneventful. I mean, for a missionary. So, there are requests to see what my schedule is like.

• 6:30-7:30 wake up and get ready
• 7:30-8:15 Breakfast (usually with beans and fried bananas)
• 8:15-9:15 Personal Study (PMG, Scriptures, whatnot)
• 9:15-10 Language Study (usually spent tutoring my comp)
• 10-12 Various language or gospel classes with my district
• 12-12:45 Lunch (tons of food. always)
• 12:45-5 More various classes (language, gospel, activities practicing teaching "investigators", whatnot)
• 5-5:45 Dinner (even more food)
• 5:45-6:45 More classes
• 6:45-7 Snack (aaaaand more food)
• 7-8 Companion Planning for the next day and Companion Study (usually reading the LDM out loud)
• 8-9 Deportes (exercise time!)
• 9-10:30 Shower, prep for bed (this is pretty much my only free time)

 

 There you go. A day in the life of a missionary. It's just classes until you eat and then more classes and more eating and more classes and then I get to hang out with some of my friends at night.

 

In my room there are 4 sets of bunk beds and full length closets that are in between. 8 girls sleep in the room (don't worry, it's pretty big, we have tons of room). 2 are intermedios (the 4 weekers, aka me and my comp), 2 are nuevos (the 2 weekers, or the newbies) and the rest are latinas who are only in the CCM for 2 weeks total. They're really sweet and I love speaking to them in Spanish, cause they always teach me the slang that I really want to learn ;)

  

 

I really like it here. The people are kind and the staff are all latinos so they can help with the language all the time. One guy told me my accent was beautiful. I just about melted.

 

 

The hermanas here are really great too. The other day during lunch all of us (our brat pack of 4 girls) shared our reasons for going on a mission and when I shared mine, one of the girls just stared at me sappily and touched her heart. She's normally the most sarcastic person (second only to me) and she was getting all teary eyed! It was so sweet. I really love them.

 

 

Speaking of my reason for going on a mission, this week I really pinned it down more than ever. I knew before, but more vaguely and just knowing that it was the right thing for me to do. Now I know why. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and only through Him can I have a life that's worth living. Only through putting Him and His church at the center of my life is going to give me any happiness. And I am on a mission to show Him that I will do anything He wants me to. If He wants me to go backpacking across the desert, I'll do it. If He wants me to stay home and crochet doilies, I'll do it. If He wants to in Guatemala, that's where I'll be, heart, mind and soul. I really know that this is where He wants me to be. If I'm successful, that's great! If I'm not, that's okay too. If that's what He wants, so be it. Jumping into missionary life has been really easy, dare I say it. This is what I've been preparing for all of my life. I know it. My testimony allows me to share everything with ease and grace in ways that convey my message to other people. I don't have a problem with the schedule and the language has been super easy to learn. The natives are a bit harder to talk to, but it's so much easier for me that a lot of people here, and for that I am so truly grateful. Just yesterday we practiced a street contact situation and it was amazing how easily I could talk to the people! They were just other missionaries pretending, but I really felt that I wanted them to know what I had and I wanted them to feel what I feel and then the words just came out of my mouth. It was so great. I feel like I was made to be a missionary!!

 

 

Only 3 weeks here and then out to the field! I pray for my trainer every morning and night! That poor hermana is going to have to teach me a lot of stuff, specifically how to deal with the smells here. In the not so clean parts, it's overwhelmingly awful. Our last field trip we had to walk through the grossest smells of my life. I was gagging so hard I could barely breathe. it was AWFUL. that's going to be a challenge.

 

 

The weather is like corvallis fall only hotter. It rains pretty much every night or every other night. And whenever it rains, there's always thunder and lightning. It's never been too hot though. Probably 70s all the time, and sometimes the low 80s. and the humidity really isn't too bad. just a bit worse than corvallis. But i am starting to get weird tan lines from my shoes. so that's a bummer.

 

 I'm so excited to get your dear elders! i only got one from sofie last week, which was nice, but i was expecting some family letters! I should be getting them tomorrow night. I mailed off a letter about 2 weeks ago. Let me know when it gets to you, momma!

 

I love you all lots! I'm safe, happy and doing good work! Don't worry about me :)

 

 

 

Love,

Hermana Weatherford

 

My mother and I have been checking the weather in Guatemala City close to daily. I didn't believe it when it was ALWAYS showing lightening, but here is the word directly from the source!

For those of us that used Dear Elder....she should get those tomorrow. It means that she's about a week behind in our news. Regular mail I am expecting will take about 3 weeks. She said she put something in the mail and I have yet to receive it, and she hasn't commented about my letters. I am hoping that both of us will get those treasures by the next Pday.

I am very grateful for Teigen's proclamation, why she is on this mission. For me, this isn't news. She's been very vocal about it for years. But reading her words and seeing her conviction just makes me feel like it's okay for her to be gone. In her farewell talk she said: Whatever we do, we do in the name of Christ. We brush our teeth, in the name of Christ. We play with our children, in the name of Christ. We honk at the driver that just cut us off, in the name of Christ. Now she's saying that whatever He asks of her, she will gladly do it.

To Quote both the hymn and Hermana W: I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go, Dear Lord.

Mariachi, Rain and Weathervane

So the schedules here are wack. like wiggidy wack. Today im writing and my pday isn´t even till tomorrow! We go to the mercado and a 3d map of Guatemala and the temple, so that´s why i´m writing today! i think next week my pday is wednesday. sheesh.

 

Not much happened this week. More lessons,  more spanish, more food, more upset stomachs. You know, the life in the CCM. On Wednesday I think, the CCM President had a birthday and a mariachi band came in and played us a mini concert during lunch! It was aaaaawesome. Tell me that happens at the Provo MTC and then I´ll admit that we´re not the coolest Training Center. Until then, the Guatemala CCM holds the title!

 

It keeps raining around here. Like amounts of early fall in Corvallis. My companion thinks it´s the most glorious thing in the world and will go out and get soaking wet every time. I adopt the role of Eeyore. I´m so apathetic about the rain especially. it´s okay though, cause Hermana Bender is like that too, so it must just be an Oregon thing.

 

Tomorrow the girls who have been here for 6 weeks leave and all of the Latinos leave. The place will be empty! Then I become part of the intermediate group and we get all new roommates! I´m pretty excited to see who we´re rooming with! Hopefully they don´t snore.

 

The Guatemala Temple is so great! Super tiny, especially compared to Portland, but it´s a temple and it´s gorgeous! :)

 

The other day we got to talk to people outside of the temple. Most of them were members and one guy we talked to was 19 and was waiting on his mission call. My comp and I talked to this old man with half of his teeth who had the most uncomprehendable accent EVER. It was soooo hard to talk to him and my spanish is not so great, but he was really sweet. He told us that we were lovely, beautiful women who were beautiful cause we were doing the Lord´s work and one day we would get married in the temple. It was very sweet. He was a nice old man.

 

So the investigator that we were teaching turned out to be our teacher! Surprise, surprise! ...but not really. Our district accidentally found out early that our investigator was an actor. It was a bit sad, but we taught him the same and prayed for him and put all of our energy into lessons! Somos diligentes :)

 

Sundays are my favorite days because we get to watch devotionals and yesterday we also watched The Testaments and Legacy! Apparently the few romantic tones really got to some of the hermanas though. they were all dreaming about boys and dating and marriage or whatever. It´s a bit sad. I had a dream that I was a senior companion in the field. There was nothing to do with anything romantic. So... I´m having an easier time getting out of girly mode than all of the other sisters. But then again, I don´t think I ever was as girly as some of them to begin with... haha

 

So my name hasn´t been too bad for the latinos to pronounce. Not as bad as I thought it would have been! But for some unknown reason, the Nortes have a really hard time with it! Here are some of the names I have been called in the past 2 weeks (keep in mind I have a nametag on at all times to read off of):

• Weatherbee
• Weathertop
• Witherspoon
• Welfare
• Weatherhead
• Waterfield
• Waterford
• Weathervane

 

Funny stuff, eh? Silly Americans can´t even read the name Weatherford off of my nametag. Sheesh.

 

Things here are great and I really love being in the CCM here. I don't know how amazing my experience would have been if I had gone to the MTC in Provo (no offense to provo people). I love the things I´m learning and it´s amazing how much I learn about the gospel every day! I miss home sometimes, but it makes it easier knowing that the Lord has work for me to do here and I just gotsta focus and I can be the missionary He wants me to be!

 

Have a great week and I hope to get your dear elder letters on wednesday or thursday!

 

Love,

Hermana Weatherford

 

I was just talking with a new missionary (her first week out of the MTC), and she said that after a couple of weeks...there just isn't much to write about. They are in classes with the same teachers and students, sleeping in the same rooms with the same people, eating essentially the same food. She mentioned that it's hard to write exciting letters and that they all get to the Eeyore phase (she didn't call it that...but it fits).

 

In our case....mail travels slowly so our questions to Hermana W don't get answered right away. Please, if you do hear something from her that you think the rest of us might like to hear...let me know and I will put it up on her blog. Apparently her sister (looking at you Kylie!) asked a handful of simple questions and has yet to share that info with us!

 

Teigen talks about Sundays and watching devotionals. If you are interested, you can find them here: http://www.mormonchannel.org/. It has a section just for Devotionals, which tend to be talks by church authorities. Also on the page are short feel good videos. Sometimes, I like to watch a couple just to bring my spirit up from a bad day (yeah, Gramma Pat, I know you do too!).

 

Until the next installment, let's Scatter Sunshine All Along the Way!

Iré y haré

Folks, we were misinformed. I don’t know where the fault lies, but as we are in the forgiving business…we forgive. Hermana W’s p-day is WEDNESDAY, not Tuesday. If you are like me…you spent many hours waiting for her email yesterday. Every reminder that pinged on my computer sent my heart rushing only to be dashed by another ThinkGeek catalog or facebook notification.  And then when I was working on a project this morning…The Email unobtrusively popped up. You know, I think if Tee could have orchestrated it, she would have opted for the latter.

 Here is what she has to share this week:

 Hi All!

So here´s how the letter thing is going to work. I love hearing from you about your week, but I don´t have time to read it all and respond in an hour, so we´re going to utilize this amazing thing called Dear Elder. Then I can read about your lives and whatnot. So if you don´t mind, please copy your emails into a Dear Elder. That way I can read over them, rather than having to skim (sorry sorry sorry!). [Details and link below. She also said:] I can write hand written letters later in the day, so please mail me those!!

 Things in the CCM are great. Pretty much all of the staff speaks Spanish with a little bit of English, so I have to practice a lot, but it´s good :) The food is amazing and the people are great as well! My companion is Hermana Martineau from Idaho. Her Spanish is AWFUL. But I get to help teach her and translate for her, which has helped me a little in the whole process. She was sick for awhile and we had to deal with that. We had some problems getting along part of the week, but we talked it out and now we´re doing just fine!

 Today we´re going to the temple, which is like 2 blocks away from the CCM [the training center: Centro de Capacitación Misional] The CCM is tiiiiiiny. There´s like 200 people max here. Latinos and Nortes. Soy una norte. It´s been really fun to talk to the Latinos in Spanish. They tell me that my Spanish is good, which I really don´t agree with, but I´ve heard it a few times now, so I guess it must be true! ;)

The way that Sundays work is that every meeting except sacrament is in English. But for sacrament, everyone gets a topic and preps a talk. In Spanish. Then they call people out of the congregation with no warning to give a talk. On the first week it´s usually someone who the DL [District Leader] thinks is good at Spanish. This week it was me. I was freaking out! It was like a 3 minutes long talk and most of it was scripture or PMG [Preach My Gospel], but hey, I gave a talk.

The CCM is under construction, so the water is off every other day it seems. The first night that we were here (longest. day. of. my. life.) just as we were settling in bed, a pipe burst and spilled water all over the floor. There was at least .5 of an inch on every bit of my bedroom floor. We spent another hour cleaning it up. Ugh.

Hardest thing about the CCM and missionary life: having a companion. She´s really lovey dovey and touchy and excited about everything and energetic and sometimes doesn´t focus and doesn´t know any Spanish and holy cats it´s hard. But the Lord is trying to teach me patience and compassion, and by flipping darned, I´m gonna learn it.

 The building of the CCM is gated all around and we only get to go out to come here, the distribution center or the temple. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, members line up stuff outside of the gate and you can buy things through the fence. It´s kinda cool actually! I bought scripture cases for my new Spanish scrips. They´re purple and I only paid 15 American dollars for three cases (BoM, bible and hymn book) and they´re going to engrave my name and mission onto leather patches and sew them on. It´s awesome how cheap stuff is here!

Next p-day I will be taking a trip to the mercado for a field trip! I´m really excited. I will get my camera for that, but won´t be able to send any pictures to you until I’m out of the CCM. (so madre, will you pick out a picture for my missionary plaque thing?) The scripture that I want for my plaque is 1 Nephi 3:7 in Spanish por favor! I looooove the phrase iré y haré. i want to write it on everything. It´s gonna be my missionary motto! Haha

 Y sucedió que yo, Nefi, dije a mi padre: Iré y haré lo que el Señor ha mandado, porque sé que él nunca da mandamientos a los hijos de los hombres sin prepararles la vía para que cumplan lo que les ha mandado.

 

Love,

Hermana Weatherford

 

And now business: at the request of our sweet missionary, I am retracting some information. Her email address will no longer be available on this blog. If you already have it, please remember that she probably won't be able to spend much time read your emails every week. Use it sparingly.

 

I have looked into the Dear Elder option. I even set up my account and put in the names and addresses of my current missionaries. Here's how it works:

           1. Go to http://www.dearelder.com/

           2. Make an account or log in to the account you already have

           3. Select Write a Missionary

           4. Pick the correct mission...Guatemala Guatemala City Central

           5. Type away!

 

The emails will be turned into physical letters which will then be put in a pouch and delievered to that mission field. From there...they get distributed to the missionaries personally. I do understand that in our fast paced/instant gratification society we want to send email and have it received lightening fast. Now we are given 3 unattractive options. A> Email normally and hope she has time to get to our email, knowing full well that we have just added to her pile of Must Do Now stuff. B> Email some random site that will deliever our message to Guatemala the day after Teigen can answer mail thus effectively leaving her one week behind in our daily lives. or C> Put the letter in the mail ourselves and hope that the poor postal system in Guatemala gets it to her sometime this month. As her mother, I'm going to use both B and C...because who doesn't love personal mail? Especially in your mother's handwriting?

 

Just a polite reminder...Hermana W is serving a mission in a non first world country. She is serving as her savior asked her to. And while she still loves each of us and wants to be a part of our world...she cannot do that. Please remember to keep messages encouraging and free from "worldly" temptations.

 

Hermana W, always lifting up others, told me this:

 

I´ve really felt the spirit here. even when there are people screaming and jumping around me, i can feel it. which i wasn´t able to feel it like that before i came here! i´ve also seen that the Lord knows me and knows my flaws and characteristics i need to work on.

 

How magnificent is it to know that she's being cared for? I know, I know, the Lord makes us promises and He's definitely not one to go back on His word.

 

Until next week: Let the Holy Spirit Guide

 

Touch Down 8/7/13

Hello & Welcome to the First Post in Hermana Weatherford's Missionary Blog!

After spending a week in southern California relaxing and visiting family, our beloved Teigen took to the skies! She left Los Angeles International Airport with a goodly number of other young adults called to the Guatemala Guatemala City Central Mission. I'm sure she was easily recognizable walking around the airport with her overstuffed carry on, modest skirt, and (probably) nervous expression. Knowing Teigen, she not only quickly made a friend, but helped someone overcome their fears as well. No word yet on if she handed out a BOM.

We did receive an email from her about 12 hours after her flight left. Considering that it was a 5-6 hour flight and who knows how long to the CCM (that's Spanish for MTC) and that she had already accomplished things....I am personally shocked (and terribly thrilled) that she had time to check in. [And as a mother...wondering if she got ANY sleep!]

This is what she wrote:

 

I don´t have much time to write, but I want you all to know that I´m alive!! My pday is Tuesday, so i won´t be able to email again till then.

 

The flight was crazy long, there are tons of missionaries in my district and I think I´m in a lower spanish class than i should be in, but i like my comp [=companion] so i´m afraid to change classes...

 

The CCM is TINY. Also, Guatemala is kinda sketch. Humidish and the water almost killed me when I brushed my teeth this morning. The food is awesome and I saw Hermana Bender [from her Corvallis days]! She looks good and we are in the same room :) My comp´s name is Hermana Martineau and she´s from Idaho. She´s a goofball, but I think we´re going to get along just fine!

 

We went on a field trip to the distribution center and i bought some spanish scriptures for myself! This day is lasting forever! It feels like I´ve been here for at least 3 days.

 

Lots of love,

Hermana Weatherford

 

A few hours later she graced us all with another short email!! In it included this information:

 

Just a few things to add, I´m still not set apart, but I have my badge! It´s awesome. Also, I won´t be able to send pictures for awhile. They took away our cameras and passports because there were some disobedient missionaries before us who took pictures they shouldn´t have.

 

She quickly stated that she was living the missionary guidelines so there wasn't any concern about not being set apart. Hopefully that will happen as soon as folks get settled. I was saddened :-( to hear that there are missionaries already causing trouble. I hope that they quickly understand the rules and start partaking of the blessings!!

 

I know you all join me in wishing her a marvelous adventures. She would love to have mail, see her address on the side bar. Please note that mail to Guatemala costs more than stateside mail. Not that it isn't worth it...

 

May God Be With You Till We Meet Again