Today has been such a good day! I
accidentally slept in til 6.45, we went to breakfast, did all
our laundry, then at 9:15 we went to the tennis and basketball
courts and played games with our district until lunch basically.
I don´t really have a logical flow of ideas here, so I´m just
going to start writing.
One thing I left out of last weeks email was that I have been
sick (what else is new, right?). One of the hermanas en mi casa
was getting over a cold, so I figured I caught it from her. So I
had a bit of a nasty cold, which was then mixed with minimal
sleep. Thursday was miserable. I wanted to stay in class though
because I didn´t want to fall behind, and we had an appointment
with a new fake investigator, Iván. Iván, by the way, is my
favorite person ever, but more on him later. During our
appointment with Iván, I could barely think or hear and I
couldn´t stop coughing. It just wasn´t great and Hermana Fox
basically had to teach most of the lesson. So afterwards I
asked if anyone had consecrated oil and if anyone would be
willing to give me a blessing. All the elderes were so willing
and excited to do so. Everyone studied how to give a blessing in
the missionary handbook, and I´m sure it was the first time
for a lot of them. So I received a blessing, and all of the
elderes in my distrito, plus one that was transferred out of my
district the first week,participated, so there were nine elderes
in all. I had such a feeling of peace, because I had been so
worried that I would be sick forever and never get better unless
I took a day off and slept it off. I really didn´t want to do
that, so many hermanas and elders have had to stay in bed all
day. During the blessing, a district across the hall started
singing "Señor, Te Necesito" which sounds about a million times
more beautiful in Spanish. It was just a really sweet
experience to receive that blessing and to know that the
priesthood of God is on the earth today, and is held by teenage
boys who are willing and worthy to exercise it in my behalf.
I woke up the next day and while I was still sick, it felt
like the final few days of a cold, whereas usually I am in a
cloud and completely worthless for a week or more. I didn´t have
a voice for about 2.5 days, but that didn´t stop me from
participating in all my classes and on three disastrous
occasions, I attempted singing. My teachers were so sweet
though! Hermana Martinez has been teaching less and less, and
more and more often Hermano Sanchez is taking over. Hermano
Sanchez is about 21, and then there´s Hermano Rangel. Everyday,
first in the morning by Hermano Sanchez then after dinner with
Hermano Rangel, they ask me how I feel, if I need medicine, if
there´s anything they can do, etc. Hermano Sanchez also teaches
primarily in español, and has only been teaching about a month.
He´s so nice and he´s so grateful when we help him learn a
little bit more English. Iván, our investigator, is also our
teacher at night, Hermano Rangel, and I have never seen someone
smile so much or express love so much. As an investigator,
he gives great responses to our questions and he helps us when
we struggle with conjugations or pronunciations of words, which
is so much better than just hearing "no entiendo" all the
time. As a teacher, he is always making us laugh, and he
teaches us a ton though his lessons but also through him just
being who he is. In the mornings with Hermano Sanchez we work
primarily on language and then just a little teaching, and with
Hermano Rangel it´s mostly teaching with a little language
(still, always in Spanish though). Hermano Rangel is always
smiling and when we leave the classroom at 9:30, Hermano
Rangel says "Smile at eberyhuan. You shood smile at eberyhuan
because you have the Gowspel! Buenas noches, I love you all!" He
tells us periodically during his lessons that the loves us as
well. I have never met nicer people than my teachers here.
Lately I´ve been getting frustrated because I haven´t been
able to say when I want in Spanish, and when I´m frustrated I
usually end up with a really red face and I look like I´m about
to burst into tears. Whenever this happens (which has been more
often than I would like), Hermano Sanchez comes over and talks
to me in his broken English and tells me that he believes in me,
and that even with my pathetic Spanish, I can teach with the
Spirit. Usually the encouragement he gives makes me actually cry
juuuust a teensy bit too, but I really love learning and
teaching. I don´t know why I let myself get so frustrated,
because my Spanish is probably better than most the people in my
class, but I guess I´m just not used to doing something that I´m
not naturally good at. I can, however, read and understand
Spanish pretty well. I can ready Predicad Mi Evangelio and know
99% of the words and I only have to look something up every
couple paragraphs. Hermano Sanchez & Hermano Rangel have
both heard me translate out loud and have told me that I can
translate spanish very well, I just can´t figure out how to say
what I want back. But it will come, and I am working on not
getting so frustrated.
We have another fake investigator, Mia. Mia is Hermana
Martinez. We have only met with her once, and it was difficult,
because Mia doesn´t believe that God loves her because of a
really sad backstory (it´s worth noting that all of our fake
investigators take on the characters of people close to
them, usually investigators they taught on their missions or
possibly their own pre-conversion selves). When we first met
with "Mia," and she was explaining how she felt about God and
churches, Hermana Martinez/Mia cried telling her feelings, so of
course I cried too (I´ve been doing that a lot lately....). We
don´t teach her again until tomorrow, but I´m still trying to
figure out exactly how you teach someone like that.
Sundays are always great. They are the longest days ever, but
they are so full of good things. Hermana Pratt is doing a
two-week lecture on faith for Relief Society, and I just love
having her as a teacher. She is amazing. We watched a devotional
that Elder Scott gave at the Provo MTC, and then at night we
always watch a church video. This week we watched the story of
the Tanner dude with the bad leg who was healed and then gave
all that money to the church and ahhh I love that story, and
then we watched the old "To This End Was I Born" video. We also
have branch meetings, sacrament meeting, study times, and class
with the CCM Presidency. Presidente Pratt taught about the
priesthood and of course I loved it, especially because of my
recent priesthood experience. I am really enjoying all of my
time in the CCM, and I´m kind of sad that I´m already halfway
done!
Oh yeah! Yesterday, Hermano Sanchez and Hermana Martinez made us teach with one of the latino districts. Walking up to them was so intimidating, because most of them knew barely any English, and we hardly know Spanish, but they were so sweet. For some reason, there were like four people watching me and Hermana Fox when all of the other groups had maybe one person watching them, but whenever we would struggle with a word or say something that made no sense, everyone would smile encouragingly at us. It was so intimidating, but they were all so sweet.
My camera has randomly stopped working. It says lens error
every time I turn it on, so I only have one picture to send
today. It has no reason to be trippin either, I have treated
that camera like a human baby. Hopefully it will snap out of it
because I have a million pictures I want to take!
So, one of the weirdest things about Mexico City is that it
will be a beautiful warm day, then you read a page of your book
and you look out the window and it´s dark and it is dumping
buckets of rain. Me and Hermana Fox got caught in one such
torrential downpour yesterday. We had gym time, then we go
straight to our weekly service project (this week and last week
we´ve just been washing the rags used to clean the windows in
the comedor), but on the way home it started raining the harder
than I´ve ever seen it rain before (however, the record was
broken later on that night when things got really crazy...). I
don´t know if you can see how wet we are in the picture, but we
were running home in the rain and still got ridiculously soaked.
I wish I could go outside and play in it! The roadways turn into
rivers and we hermanas just take off our shoes because the water
comes up to our ankles, even on parts of the sidewalks. The
grounds of the CCM are really uneven because the ground sinks so
much every year and there are lots of earthquakes, so there are
huge puddles in the middle of walkways where the ground has sunk
in. It´s also weird that even when it hasn´t rained all day, the
ground is still just thick, saturated mud. I love it here
though, and I love the random rain. I have learned to bring my
umbrella everywhere, even if I don´t see a single cloud in the
sky, because that is usually when it´s going to come down the
hardest. Last night it hailed for a couple seconds and even with
my umbrella, my skirt became soaked through and my shoes are
still wet, even though I was carrying them in my hands. Every
night and early in the morning, we also hear cannons. At least
they sound like cannons, we don´t really know what they are or
where they come from, but they are loud! Mexico City is so loud!
We still hear fireworks occasionally at night too.
Last night, at the beginning of Tuesday Devotional (we
watched a DVD of a devotional Elder Bednar gave at the Provo
MTC), President Pratt announced the songs and oraciónes etc. and
then said "After devotional I need to see Hermana Natalie Rust
in my office." Everyone in my district just turned and looked at
me and I had no idea what it was about. My first thought was
that I had accidently broken some rule, but then when Elder
Hendricks said it was probably bad news, my immediate thought
was that Grandpa Skousen died. When I met with President Pratt,
he welcomed me into his office, had me sit down, and then told
me what you had emailed to him. I told him that I had a feeling
before I left that he was going to die while I was on my
mission, so I had made sure to tell him that I loved him and to
talk to him a bit. I was having a decent cry, and he told me to
stay in his office as long as I wanted and to let him know if I
needed anything, but I told him that staying there wouldn´t do
me or anyone else any good, and that I would cry tonight but
that I will be just fine, and that my district was having a
meeting so I needed to go. He told me I was strong, and that he
knew I wouldn´t let this slow me down. There´s no way I would
let it either, because there´s no reason. I know where Grandpa
is, and what he´s doing and that he´s with Brett, and I know
everyone at home will be just fine. I did write some things in
my journal, and it´s probably the same things that everyone else
has said.
One of my favorite things about Grandpa is simply how he says
hello and goodbye. He always greets me with a "Well hello
princess!" or "How are you doing, angel?" and there´s usually a
"You just get prettier everyday" thrown in there. After I got my
mission call, princess and angel were replaced with "Natalie" or
"Hermana" or my personal favorite, "Querida." He always made me
feel special, and he always let me know how much he loved me.
He´s so full of love, and I love that he always made sure his
family knew he loved them, the temple, and the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. You know that those are the things most important to
him, and I want to make sure that everyone always knows that
family, the temple, and the Gospel are important to me.
Another thing I thought of was 2 Nefi 32.3. "Ángeles hablan
por el poder del Espiritu Santo" y ahora tengo un ángel que
habla español. I know that Grandpa will be helping me, and I
have already felt his love. I know that he is so happy with
where I am, in a country he loves, learning to speak the
language he loves, so I can teach others the gospel that he
loves. Don´t you think that Grandpa probably had a huge
welcoming party of people just waiting to thank him for all the
ordinances he did in the temple? And I love to think about his
and Uncle Brett´s reunion. El Plan de Salvación is real, it is
God´s plan for us, and Grandpa is just continuing the work on
the other side. I can´t wait to give him a big hug later and
have him call me Princess or Querida and tell me that I´ve
gotten even prettier.
Make sure Grandma knows I love her, tell everyone when you
see them on Saturday that I love them too.
Love,
Hermana Rust
P.S. Have Alexa write me a letter! Holly, add Brooke on
snapchat brookie_palookie and tell her to write me too! They
promised, and I want mail!
