Life of a Missionary

[This is the Taylor we are used to seeing, asleep in moments in a traveling vehicle, LOL, she thought it was a funny picture and sent it to me so I had to share it too.  Renae]

This last month has been one of the busiest months.  My normal day consists of waking up at 6:30 am (well, let’s be honest I kind of break that rule by 15 minutes), but I'm trying to do better.  After I wake up, the usual mission routine is breakfast, personal study, then off to three hours of language class, then more additional study time, lunch, language study, gym time, TALL (which is language study on the computer), then Dinner and more class.  That’s all we do, eat and study, but that’s the life of a missionary, busy, packed days, but I try to do my best.

 

The devotionals are my favorite part.  I can always feel the Spirit so strongly and those are what makes the days worth it.  It is just a simple reminder of why I am here.  I feel like I have been improving on the language, I don’t have to use my notes as much. 

 

Before fast Sunday I had to give a talk (side note, everyone has to prepare a talk each week then after the passing of the sacrament President Gill randomly selects about 6 speakers from the audience, and of course, I was the lucky winner).  The topic was repentance and it had to be 5 minutes in length and in Spanish, of course.  I’m not sure if what I said was grammatically correct, but I survived.  Then this past Sunday I, for some reason, thought that it would be a great idea to bare my testimony.  It was very fast and short, but I am glad that I did it.  Sundays are days filled with meetings and devotionals but they are good days filled with the Spirit.

 

One quick spiritual experience I want to share is from one of Elder David Bednar's talks.  We watched a video of him giving a talk at the Provo MTC a few years back.  He shared a story of a woman who was the Relief Society President in his ward.  She was a single mom with a daughter.  One night the Relief Society President got a call that there had been an awful accident with three of the young women from her ward. She called Elder Bednar asking for help.  As she was on her cell phone with Elder Bednar she got another call on her house phone.  Elder Bednar could hear the voices on the house phone, it was the hospital again saying that one girl died and it was her daughter.  The Relief Society President spoke to Elder Bednar and asked him to please inform the families of the other girls about the accident.  He was shocked that after what had happened she was worried about the other families.  The story went on to say that as this Relief Society President was on her way to her own daughter’s funeral she got a call from a cranky old lady in the ward that was complaining that she had a cold and non one brought her dinner like they were assigned to do.  Instead of the Relief Society President getting mad and telling the women she was on the way to her daughter's funeral, she apologized for the inconvenience and told the lady she would be over soon.  This lady was a pure example of Christ, she turned outward even though she was struggling.  She did what Christ would do and still does.  This was a powerful devotional, it makes me want to work harder.  We also watched Meet the Mormons on Christmas, it was good, you should watch it.

A few funny things happened to me, one I was coming out of the bathroom and my dress was completely tucked into my underwear, my companions got a kick out of that.  Then yesterday our District was playing catch and I went to go catch the ball just as our District Leader, Elder Brander, plowed me over into the ground, he didn’t mean to, but it was funny. 

Everything is different here at the CCM, the food, my companions, the atmosphere, the smell, but it is good.  I think I will kind of miss Mexico in two weeks.  Can you believe only two more weeks here then off to Reno?  I miss you so much but I am trying to make you proud and work hard, I love you all!

 

Hermana Friend