How Firm A Foundation

Hola familia! Como esta? 

Mi español es un poquito bien. My spanish is a little better, but I still have a lot to improve on. Tons, actually. Right when I think that i'm getting everything, i find that I'm not quite there just yet haha. But life's good! The title of this email is How Firm a Foundation because spanish is and will be the foundation of my mission. Well, not spiritually, but if I can understand spanish, then I can learn of the needs of my investigators and i can teach to them and try to help them and to bring them to Christ. Thus, my goal by the time I leave the CCM is to be fluent. Gosh, people here speak fast! If I can at least be fluent by the time I leave, then I think I'll be ok ... We get lectured a lot to speak spanish. The rule is "español, español, español!!" so, español it is!

yet in the midst of the spanish ... a few of the elders in my district (elder tenney and elder davis) are trying to speak and learn pidgin. There's a few other polys here that speak it and they tried to say "ho you know dat brah" ... they are so white. hahaha so i'm trying to teach them.  also, here we play volleyball ...i'm reminded of how much of a water baby that I am every single time I play ... I'm poly, but I'm so not cut out for volleyball! But my companion plays so I go along with it. plus, the two other poly elders and 2 other poly sisters play, so it's pretty fun. 

Last week i got to go contacting for the first time! It was super exciting! and boy was I so nervous. I mean, I know I know the doctrine but trying to teach them in spanish ... oh dang. hahaha but that was the first time we got to interact with the locals! And everyone we asked to talk to (we went to the university here and contacted), they politely stopped walking, and looked at us when we spoke, and accepted our pamphlet. They are soooo nice and patient! A few even corrected my spanish, which was nice for me and helped me a lot. They are so nice and so ready to hear the gospel. I'm looking forward to teaching them more! I have 2 weeks left in the CCM i think and then i'm out! I met this one lady with a baby when we were contacting and she listened to the message. I felt prompted at the end to give her a BOM, but by that time she was walking away and I didn't have the gut (or the spanish) to call her back. i felt really really really bad that i didn't give her one ... but from now on, I'm gonna do everything the spirit prompts me to do; i mean, it wouldn't hurt too, but its muy importante to listen to the spirit.

When we teach our "investigators" (our teachers who pretend to be investigators), i'm beginning to understand more people and to talk more without any help! That's super exciting! A lot of the time, it's the spirit working through me, guiding me in the conversation, doing the understanding for me that I can't do for myself. But it's getting easier every day. 

My favorite times here at the CCM are sundays. We have church in the morning from 9-12, then lunch, then we have a deeeeep doctrinal class with our president (which is awesome), we watch church movies, and then we have dinner, a devotional by one of the 12 (video, of course), and then talk about that in our district. That's when all the good, juicy spiritual stuff happens. and it's aweomse. I love it! Thne in the night, we walk around the temple. The Latinos here are hilarious! On sunday, me and Hermana Fife (mi companera) were just sitting outside the temple talking and then they latino guys came up and asked us to take pics with us. We felt super pops lol but it was super fun! They are hilarious and loud and awesome! I love them! 

Anyway, Know that I'm okay and that i'm growing so much and be humbled more than i ever thought i could be. I had to give a talk in sacrement meeting my first sunday and I said "I know that my spanish is broken, but i also know that my testimony is not broken." Entonces, thank you for your love and support.  Please pray for my missionary amigos here in the CCM. We are all struggling with Spanish, many more than others and a few people have been taking it really hard. I'd but muchas gracias por that. 

Love you guys! Strengthen your testimonies and strengthen each other and the home. I challenge my siblings to stay off electronics every day as often as possible. Doing so, i've realized, invites the spirit in more ways than one and opens up opportunities for you to "do something good in the world today" as the hymn goes. if I can do it, you can too!! Love you guys! Thanks for your love and support and for all that all of you have done to get me on my mission. Thank you for your examples. Love you all! and asta luego!! :D

Love, 

Hermana Ho