¡Familia y Amigos! ¡Buenas Tardes!
I LOVE YOU ALL. WOW I JUST LOVE YOU. (Now that that's out of the way, let's get on to that letter.)
First
of all, I'm sorry, but I will never think of hymns the same way again.
Hymns in english are just so inadequate! The Spanish language is
absolutely beautiful. Even though I usually don't understand half of it,
I think that it just sounds muy bonita. It's almost as soothing as
someone playing the guitar. They have a hymn that we don't have in
English about missionary work...it's numero ochente y ocho....I can't
remember the name of it, but you should definitely look it up. It's
beautiful.
Well there are these fruits here....pretty sure they
are guavas? I've never seen a guava before, but when I asked a native
what it was called, she said like..."heh-whaa-ba"...and I'm guessing
that it translates to guava...? Anyway, it's yellow and about the size
of a fist...nope...smaller. It looks like a dried out lemon. But you
just bite into the skin and there are a billion seeds in the middle that
are hard to chew, but SO delicious. So they have them every once in a
while, and Hermana Wilson and I aboslutely love them. One day we were
eating, and Hermana Wilson, in her cute and absolutely innocent way,
says (out of nowhere) (and she was cradling the fruit in her cupped
hands) "...if I were at a king's birthday party....I would bring him
this magical fruit." We all pretty much died. Oh man, I love these girls
to death.
One night, Hermana Clawson and I knelt down for
companionship prayer, and I closed the door and all the sudden we heard
this violent squeaking, and I just flipped out. It sounded like a mouse.
And I did that thing where I just remove myself, and I just walked away
from the door, leaving my compañera to take care of it. Anyway, she
couldn't see a mouse so we were going to change rooms just in case, and
when we opened the door the squeaking happened again! We freaked out!
But then...we realized it was the door. So...awkward.
Also, I've never seen such consistently remarkable
sunsets in one place. Literally every night is breathtaking. I don't
know what it is about the sky in Mexico, but it's always beautiful! It
makes me want to just sit down and sing hymns. I was humming one the
other day while I looked up at the sunset, and then Hermana Wilson and
Fast came up behind me and started to hum this corny back-up harmony to
throw me off, and we all laughed. Did I say that I love these girls?
Because I do.
We've got THE BEST district. Hermana Clawson and I are
the only two hermanas, but the elders impress me every single day.
Literally, I looked around the room yesterday and I could think of at
least one instance with each of them where they really impressed me with
their testimony or input in a lesson. Also, they are hilarious. There's
an Elder here who does the most accurate impersonation of Thomas S
Monson I have ever/will ever hear.
So I'm looking in my journal, and on 3 de Agusto I
wrote "I've been doing better at studying (smiley face.) I love the
elders in our distr---" And that's all I wrote. It's because a fly was
like obsessed with my face and hitting me in the face a million times
because of my reading light. So there's that. It was the worst
experience that could ever happen to anyone in the planet ever.
Anyway, the elders are really great. It's really really
REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY hard not to hug them because they are SO
AWESOME.
We got to watch the Joseph Smith movie
on Sunday. I want you to know that I have a firm testimony of Joseph
Smith. I know that he was called of God to restore this gospel on the
earth. I have an ever-growing testimony of the Book of Mormon--ERIN AND
IRELAND--read the Book of Mormon. On your own. Before the end of the
school year, at least. Go get some good scripture markers and assign all
of the colors something different. For me, I have red for missionary
work (personal), bright green for helping investigators, dark green for
teaching my children principles, orange for things we must do to
continue to grow in the gospel, blue for things that we have now adays
(like sacrament prayers) or prophecies that have already come to pass
(like Christ's atonement), yellow for things yet to happen/concerning
the second coming, purple for attributes of the Father and of
Christ....okay?? Get the picture?? Then I want you to read the Book of
Mormon before the end of the school year. You can do family study, too,
but I really think you should read it on your own. That's one of my
regrets being out here...I wish so badly that I had been better at my
scripture study.
The language is difficult. This week was kind of hard
that way. But I know that I need to put my faith in the Lord that He
will help me learn what I need to know in order to best serve Him if I
am doing everything in my power to learn! It's like the atonement. He
will make up the difference.
The days have been flying by (for me, at least.) It really just feels like I had a P-Day like...2 days ago. Crazy crazy.
The Elders found out I sing, and they found me and Erin on lds.org.
They are so nice. They want me to sing all the time. They love when I
sing parts of "Savior, Redeemer of my Soul." Since people found out I
sing, I sing in the shower like no one's business. My poor
roommates/compañera. ;)
I got your package, mama! Gracias! It made my day!!
Also,
congratulations to Jean and Nate! My mom and dad sent me pictures of
the wedding/reception...it was beautiful. I loved her dress and I loved
the set up of the reception so much. Congrats!! Love you guys!
Well, I'm going to try to attach some more pictures to this email. I love you all with all my heart! Keep writing!
I love being a missionary!
Sincerely, Hermana Thomas
ps: If I can, I'm going to send a short video I made of
the other night....YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE RAIN. Just know that the
video doesn't do it justice. Not in the slightest.
pps: I (almost) lived through an earthquake. The siren went off so we
had to gather in these safe spots, and we stood there for a while, but
it didn't hit us. CRAZAY.
ppps: that last ps sounded like I died. I didn't.
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