Week #1 at the MTC

Hola everyone!! 

This first week has been crazy busy. Classes from 6:30am-9pm everyday with personal study, companionship study, Spanish study, devotionals and a little bit of sleep haha. The first day we were greeted by the president of the CCM, President Moore, and his wife. They are such loving and welcoming poeple and I feel so blessed to have them. It´s been so much fun to be here at the CCM with native Spanish speakers to help us Americans out! We have one hour of physical activity a day, and a girl from Argentina wanted to join me in my exercsie circuit I was doing. As I told her each of the exercises we would do, she translated it to Spanish for me. The language block is definitley hard at times, but we all just laugh it out. In my district there are 8 Elders and just me and my compañera, Hermana Lawrence. The Elders are all fresh out of high school and can get a little wild, but it has been so much fun getting to know them this past week. I love my compañera so much. H. Lawrence is very quiet and shy, but has such a strong love for the gospel and is so motivated to learn the language. We share a room with two other Hermanas, Hermana Running and Hermana Perry. They are both so sweet and loving and I already feel like I've known them for so long.

Some pretty crazy things happened this week. When we were all singing to prepare for a musical number for a devotional, there was a total earthquake. We didnt really know what was happening while we were singing, but noticed that the projector that showed us the words to the hymn was shaking violentlty, and we all just started looking at each other. It didn´t even phase the natives and they just kept on singing, it was great. Today for our pday, we went on a bus tour of Lima for 4 hours. It was so cool. the Peruvain drivers are super crazy and we thought we were going to get in a wreck every 5 minutes, but we survived. we were able to walk around too and I got some pics to share!

My compañera and I have already taught 3 lessons completely is Spanish to our investigator, Edwin, and he committed to being baptized!! Edwin is really just our teacher, Elder Palacio, who pretends to be an investigator. There are little casitas that the investigators live in to make the environment seem like the real thing when we teach them. It´s been a ton of fun and really good practice, but also nerve-racking. 

The past week I´ve been able to try a lot of new Peruvian food which has been super good. I can't remember a lot of the names of the food, but soon enough I´ll be able to! There have been empanadas, a lot of rice of course, chicken, and they offer salad that won´t make you sick (how kind). They´ve also served a lot of papaya which I love and tons of catelope. I can't wait to get out and explore the real homemade stuff when i head out to Trujillo though!

It´s really hard becasue we only have one hour to write, and I have so much that I want to say.! But I know that Heavenly Father is aware of us and loves us all so much. As long as we humble ourselves and have a sincere desire to better ourselves each day, he will bless us and help us, and we will feel the Atonement of Jesus Christ working in our lives. I know Jesus Christ is our Savior and that through Him we have the strength to push through any and every obstacle we face. I love you all! Remeber to thank God for the little things in life that bring you joy!

Pics!

The first pic is of me and Hermana Aubrey and I posin first day. She met Tai my really good friend and roommate in Hawaii before she got called to the same mission as me! The rest are pics from our tour of Lima.

Hermana Doney