LA LUCHA ES REAL!

So... the subject for this email comes from good ole Elder Brown. He's one of our zone leaders and taught us the most useful Spanish phrase I've learned thus far: "The struggle is real."

This place is nuts! It's like the most intense schooling experience I've ever had. But at the same time, it's great! The people in my district are awesome and we've grown really close in the last week. I can only imagine how we'll be five weeks from now. Our zone is pretty dope too. I've been getting to know a couple of the Elders from the other two districts in our zone a little bit and they're all pretty awesome. I've been having a really good time. My companion is Hermana Nakken and she's great. We're VERY different but we get along just fine. I'm really grateful to have her.

Hermana Nakken and me

The spirit here is really strong. I love that I can *literally* relate to everyone here. We all have the same goal and we all believe the same things and it makes it really easy for us to come together. We have this crazy awesome devotionals every Sunday and Tuesday that are super good. I honestly can't remember what Sunday's was but yesterday's was way cool. Larry R. Lawrence of the Seventy came and talked about our war with Satan and how we can defeat him. And you know I'm always into cool battles and stuff. So it was awesome to be likened to an sweet warrior which, let's be real here, I am.

Our whole district decided to join the choir. it's awesome! I know I've been using that word a lot but my brain is kinda fried so I can't really think of anything else to say. haha. But yeah choir. We sang last night at the devotional. We sang We Are All Enlisted which was so cool. That song is dope. Everywhere you go here, there's little spiritual nuggets to be found. Even the choir director will take time out of our practice to tell us a cool story.

Gym time is pretty fun. We usually just play volleyball as a district and it gets OUTTA CONTROL. That's right. MTC All Star right here. One of the pictures I'll send is of a gnarly bruise I got diving for a ball. We're technically not allowed to dive but I do it anyway. I just get really competitive. Which probably isn't great but oh well.

So... learning a language has been interesting. Our teacher has only spoken Spanish since we got here so the first couple of days were crazy because there was pretty much nothing I could understand from him. But it's amazing how real the Gift of Tongues is. It's only been a week and now I can understand so much more. And even speak a little. It will come. I just have to put my faith in the Lord.

My frustrated face.

We've had to teach a couple of investigators already. Those lessons are always interesting. Our first lesson was on like, the third day and it had to be entirely in Spanish so that was no bueno. haha. But Hma. Nakken and I have been focusing too much on getting the language right and not enough on teaching with the Spirit. So we're trying to improve that. And yesterday, we taught our first TRC (training resource center) investigator and we didn't really plan much. We just went in and talked to her and it was so much better! We obviously still have to plan but if we're more focused on the person we're teaching that speaking perfect Spanish, then things go a lot better. Teach people, not lessons. One of the fundamentals of missionary work.

P-day Temple Excursion

Okay. That's pretty much it for this week. A lot has happened but at the same time, nothing has happened. it's been fast but also slow... I don't know how to explain it. Oh well. I love you miss you all and hope things are going well for you out in the real world. (The MTC is like another planet, I swear...) Farewell until next week!

Love, Hermana Hein.