Email from Monday, December 29, 2014
Luckily,
that song isn´t in the Spanish hymnbook so I was not tortured by it
this year! But I still had a moment of silence for all of you Mormon
Americans who suffered through the only hymn written in minor key. Sorry
folks!
But Anyway, this week was Christmas?! I still don´t
believe that even happened. That I got to see my awesome fambam and
share some special time with them on that special day. Surprisingly, I
wasn´t an emotional wreck afterward. I just felt so grateful to even
have a family and then to get to talk to them, what a blessing!
So
I finished the Book of Mormon this week and convienently, it´s still
true. :) And I made the decision to begin it again...IN SPANISH! It´s
totally helping me with my language abilities already and I kind of like
it more because it´s like discovering it all over again. Yeah, it takes
some time but it´s time well spent to get so much out of it! I hope you
all are making the Book of Mormon part of your daily study!
Also,
family, you should know that I sacrificed myself for our Skype call
because the lady´s house where we called from had about 12 trillion
mosquitos and I currently have around 40 mosquito bites on my body. It
is.....THE WORST. So I had to start taking Vitamin B in addition to my
daily lathering of the strongest bug spray on the planet.
As
for this week´s edition of #justBoliviathings which are things that I
now consider normal that may make you people shudder a bit....
- my
"dead things in the street" count continues to rise...dogs, cats, rats,
snake, 3 men which were probably just drunk but I couldn´t see their
chest moving so...who knows
- trash here doesn´t go in a can
that you take out to the street once a week, but there´s just metal
baskets on the side of the road where people throw things and then the
wind blows it out and that´s why the trash problem remains unsolved
- we
don´t flush our toilet paper, I know my family and some of you know
that but for those of you who are learning this info for the first time,
yep. it´s true.
- I cross a freeway every day to get to my area
each day and every time I have to go to the church. I would probably
never ever do that in the states but here, it´s just kind of my life and
we just run fast
- we walk pretty much everywhere but our area
is GIANT so sometimes we have to take the micro, I am as tall as the
micro...so that´s always fun. :) It´s the only time I feel like a giant.
On the spiritual and in my opinion most important side,
We
had our Christmas conference this week with over half of our mission
and it was glorious. Seriously, I don´t even know how I lived without
all the knowledge I gained this week. And I got surprise called out of
the congregation at the end to bear my testimony in Spanish. I about
peed my pants when he said my name. But I went up there and did it. I
have no idea what I said which is evidence of the gift of tongues and
the power of the spirit but I know I didn´t stumble on any words and
that what I said was exactly what the Lord wanted me to say in that
moment. Which is the coolest feeling ever, by the way. President Willard
said he was so proud of me and I almost cried, because the Willards
honestly feel like a new set of parents for this time in my life and
even though Mom and Dad don´t get to see me right now, the Willards are
taking great care of me. Along with Hermana Lyon who is seriously the
perfect trainer for me. I am so grateful for her example and for her
testimony. She made this first Christmas away from home such a lovely
experience. We sat under our felt Christmas tree on Christmas Eve night,
read the Christmas story from the bible and sang Silent Night (in
English!) and then woke up Christmas morning and made french toast and
exchanged gifts. It was truly wonderful.
I hope you all had
a FANTASTIC Christmas and remember that Jesus Christ is not only the
reason for the season but the reason for everything and all that we have
and are. He IS the divine gift.
I´ll talk to you all next year! ;)
Con mucho amor,
Hermana Gauger
O Christmas Tree
Christmas Conference
The tallest hermana in this mission...with the shortest hermana
How could you not love this country? I witness precious moments like this all the time!
Christmas morning
My Zone
Featuring my fambam. (Christmas Skype session)
Spelling error, I thought it said taller chicas....
No comments:
Post a Comment