August 24, 2017

WEEK 3

Well everyone, I have claimed two nicknames here in the CCM. 1. "Mom" (I think it means I am loving like a mom...not bossy...I hope.)  2. "Hermana Crocs" (I wear my fav shoes every day: my cool Crocs.)  The days are starting to pick up pace. Wahoo that’s a huge blessing. Originally, they were just sluggin on by.

FOOD. Yes... the food is getting worse. Thank you Momma Crofts for giving me unrealistic expectations about food. I think I eat a whole jar of peanut butter and at least half a cantaloupe daily. Not together of course... that would be gross. One day at breakfast,  I was putting peanut butter on my cereal, and this Elder turned to his companion and was just like "Dude.... Hermanas LOVE peanut butter." I just laughed because I couldn't tell if he was mocking me or really just had this new realization.  But usually those are the reliably tasty foods. GUESS WHAT?! Somehow I got my hands on a whole bag of Honey Bunches of Oats, my favorite cereal. A Hermana was leaving to her mission and didn't have room for it!!!! My stomach has been so happy, except is has been only like 3 days and I already ate it all. So temporarily my stomach was happy....ALSO ALICIA CROFTS SENT ME DONUTS. I opened it and the four girls in our room looked at those donuts like they were the greatest thing we had ever seen. We all ate a couple and then since Alicia sent me 2 dozen donuts we shared them with our district. Everyone just like “ooed and ahhhed” they were so tasty. 

So look Tuesday... man what a day. I went on my morning run with Hermana Edwards and just felt horrible. We ran back to the house and I had major diarrhea!! I really have done fairly well with the food... but something got me good. If that's not a great way to start the day, I don't know what is. #blessed  Luckily, it was just that morning and afterwards I was fine. Later, we were in our language study and our maestro comes in late and says "I am so sorry that I am late but I have great news. We are going to practice teaching with another district!!!!! Aren´t you guys excited??? You aren´t excited?"  My jaw just dropped because I was like seriously?? I am leaving the perfect nonjudgmental zone that is our district.... So we go and we teach this other district and I was assigned to teach with this girl who has fantastic Spanish!! She is on my same week but took like 7 years of Spanish and just has Spanish like you wouldn´t believe. It was very very humbling for me. My Spanish was okay and I felt like I could bring the Spirit but for some reason, it really got me discouraged. Right after we had another lesson on “Stress and how to identify stress in your life and what to do with it.” So we got the combination of those back to back... After that, we were doing our daily planning and we could tell that there was this weird lull on everyone in the district and I just felt so sad. I said a little prayer in my heart that I would just cheer up because nothing had really got me down like this before!! Right after, I just felt like "Heather...ask for a blessing." In my mind I was like "NOW??" I pushed away the thought and then looked up at all my Elders in the district and it was like "HEATHER. YOU ASKED FOR HELP. NOW ASK FOR A BLESSING." I was like "okayyyyyyy settle down....I´ll ask." So I like pretended to throw something in the garbage and then I just stopped in front of the Elders and started to cry and asked for a blessing. They asked me who they wanted to give it and I really felt like it needed to be Elder Smith and then right after he volunteered. So then all 8 of the Elders, who have become like a little family to me here gave me a blessing. Elder Smith had no way of knowing what I needed, I didn´t even know what I needed!! The blessing really felt like it was coming straight from God. It was really really cool AND it helped me so much!! Later when I talked to him he was kinda timid and told me that he was glad that he could help but truthfully couldn´t remember anything that he said. He was just a mouthpiece and it was a huge testimony builder for me. The rest of the day went up from there and the week has also been better!!! I have just been so hard on myself. I feel like the Spanish should be coming quicker and I should be remembering it...But then I told myself to knock it off and quit being so hard on myself. 

This week we got a new "investigator" to teach here in the CCM. We had our first lesson and we prepared everything we were going to say and what we would ask.. all that jazz. Hermana Edwards speaks amazing Spanish. Everyone thinks she should be on her 6th week by how great she does. I actually do really well but love the security of having my notes in the lesson except they just distract me. During our lesson I was speaking and then stumbled over my words and went to look at my notes.... Hermana Edwards put her hand over them and gave me the look like "girl you got this" and I just spoke and it was in not great Spanish but the spirit was strong and it was such an AMAZING lesson. We both just left like skipping down the hall back to our classroom. I no longer use my notes in the lessons and it has helped improve them SO MUCH. The spirit is stronger in those lessons and it is just about the only time during the day that I feel confident in my Spanish. 

I love my district here. We have become like this cute little family that will go and play volleyball together and we just have fun. The boys just make us laugh hahah. Story time!!! The other day we were doing our studying outside and we got attacked by these malicious ants. So today I was walking to write this email and I was with the Hermanas (Hermanas Edwards, Wahlquist, and Spencer) While we were walking, we were just chatting and seriously bird poop missed me by a solid 3 inches. I just laughed like hallelujiah!! Not 5 seconds later, bird poop hits Hermana Spencer right in the neck. HAHAHAH.

Love,

Hermana Crofts

Picture from the CCM Facebook page. The girl in the middle looks familiar.

CCM Arrivals August 9, 2017. Hermana Crofts is second row in the center.

Me and my comp, Hermana Edwards

This is my cute district

Temple pics I forgot to send from last week.

Hermana Spencer and I grabbing some ice cream at the tienda. Happy moment for sure!

Hermana Edwards and I working on TALL. It is supposed to help us learn Spanish.

This is our room. Cute huh? I am on the bottom bunk.

Our district at lunch today.

My 3 Hermanas and our casa #3. The days are all sunny and then randomly it just POURS!!!!

Donuts, of course the donuts from Alicia.  Happiest moment of the week!

Anyway this is our daily district volleyball. Wahooooo!

You would all be proud at how good I have gotten. I can really hold my own. I feel like the cool sand volleyball players at the Olympics. I know that it doesn´t get that intense. But just imagine that because I promise I look THAT COOL.