Hobos, Gift of Tongues, Birthday Oreos

I got this letter a couple days ago. It was extremely tragic actually. In an attempt to keep her feeling the love, the mail her often...in every form I can. I usually send her a short email (no time for her to read AND respond and I know what's most important) the day or two before her Pday. This time she send her email on Monday, which was a holiday for those of us in the USA. I had no email for her! I didn't even realize she had written! Well, hopefully she understood that absence of letter didn't mean absence of thought.

Anyhow, here is her letter:

So we've hit the 4 week mark (almost. on wednesday it'll be 4 weeks). Today is a wiggity wack day because we have a field trip tomorrow and so we write our families today! But surprise surprise, pday isn't until tomorrow.

I swear that no one knows what the heck is going on. This morning during personal study, they kicked us out of our classroom (to use it as a workshop area for the kids leaving tomorrow) and said "go find a classroom or something". So we wandered in the wilderness for what seemed like 40 years, but was really 40 minutes and finally found a class. We don't know where our teacher is and we're squatting in some room. An Hermana in my district said that we're like the CCM hobos. We just go wherever we find a place. Sometimes we teach ourselves. Today we walked to the internet place (which is only a block away) by ourselves. But the streets are lined with sketchy people and security guards with guns and beggars and people sleeping in the grass and whatever. It's weeeeird. I talked to the guy at the entrance to tell him we were leaving though, and everyone was so impressed with my spanish :) haha, if they could understand it, they'd know how bad it was....

Things are pretty chill here. Yesterday was Fast and Testimony Meeting and we literally fasted for 24 hours. It was BRUTAL. But we got over it and I definitely saw the blessings in my life. I was happier and more patient and loving while I was fasting. Which is a Christmas miracle in September, cause I am not a nice chica when I'm hungry. I got up and bore my testimony in Spanish, which was a bit scary, but what was the coolest thing is that my companion did too!! It was so great. She is learning so much! She remembered the word for rice on her own today (arroz) and her testimony made sense too! Gift of Tongues. I'm just saying.

Not really much to report otherwise. When I came to the CCM I smuggled in 2 packs of oreos and I still have some left. But thanks to the humidity here that seeps into EVERYTHING, the oreos were kinda soft. It's not the best, but we smothered them with peanut butter and used it as a "cake" for one of the sister's birthday. I took my mini flashlight and held it over the oreo and when she blew on it, I clicked it off! It was super ghetto, but really fun and she enjoyed it a lot! The flashlight candle is going to catch on. It'll be a trend. Just you wait.

A couple weeks ago on the temple grounds I lost my balance and fell backwards down the stairs into a small tree shrub thing. It scratched up my back super bad, but it's finally healed! I can now wear my skirts over the wound. So that's a plus. Also, I coined the term "Guatemullet" on our last field trip. We'll see what other fashion trends I can spot and name on this field trip!

I'm excited to go out into the field and it feels like it's just around the corner! Tomorrow we'll be the old kids here and that'll be weird. I don't even know anything! They change stuff around here all the time. The building is always under construction and the districts are moved around on the daily. I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow they make us study in the gym. haha

And now the part where I share my testimony: I know the church is true. But more important than that knowledge is the knowledge that the gospel is true. A church is made of people and people are imperfect. I'm imperfect in everything I do, yet the Lord has called me to be a missionary. He knows that even though my Spanish isn't that great and my teaching skills are less than par, the gospel is true and as long as I teach with the Spirit, the people will see through my flaws to the message I'm trying to share. That is my goal, to take people the truth and have them see that it's not from me, but from the Lord and that I am his messenger!

And that's all for this week folks. If you have any questions or things you'd like me to write about, send em over! I feel like I ramble a lot. So... give me some purpose. Please.

Lots of Love!

Hermana Weatherford

Thank you all for writing! I know that she loves to hear about our lives. To be honest, I think she likes the everyday stuff just like we do! I love hearing that she is making friends, using those Oreos for good and healing. Just like normal folks!

Step by step...We'll Bring the World His Truth.