i have so much to tell you. hopefully i don´t run out of time!!! so we got here on wednesday around dinner time. the bus from the airport to the ccm was like the scariest but coolest experience of my life hahaha. it was crazy because people here don´t follow traffic rules, they just drive wherever, however and whenever they want. and people fly through on their scooters. they don´t even use the lanes. they have like 5 cars or buses on a 3 lane road!! and people walk between the cars trying to sell things to people in their cars. since hallie asked, yes it is a little ghetto (actually a lot ghetto) but also really beautiful.
i forgot to bring my schedule with me to tell you how a typical day is so i´ll just guess, no specific times haha. we get up at 6:30 in the morning, have companionship prayer, get ready (i´ve gotten pretty good at getting ready in under 25 minutes makeup, clothes and hair haha). then at 7 we have personal study. then we have breakfast at 7:45. then at 8:20 we have to be in our classroom. we go over our language study homework, and do more studying with gospel and language study. then we have book of mormon, our district and teacher take our chairs outside and each read a verse at a time. we stop and ask questions and discuss the chapter we read, we read the scriptures in english so we understand it better. then we go to gym at 11:30 and we get ready and go to lunch at 1pm. then we have companion study i think and then we teach our investigator. since its the first week, our whole district has been teaching the same investigator, who will eventually become our night teacher in like a day or two. teaching starts at 3:30 and we each give a 20ish minute lesson. we rotate the order we teach in. hermana hamilton and i were the first ones in our district to teach on friday. we had like maybe 10-15 minutes to prepare but it went really well. it was crazy just how happy we both felt after teaching our investigator, javier, about the gospel. not all of our lessons have been perfect, which is one reason why we´re glad he´s not a real investigator so we can make mistakes without huge consequences. but none of our lessons were really bad. our fourth lesson was the best, the spirit was so strong as we talked with javier about the doctrine of christ and keeping the word of wisdom (he had a problem with drinking and smoking). in our fourth lesson we committed him to baptism and to attend church with us and the 5th lesson we committed him to read the book of mormon. even though we know it´s not real, it felt so real. i can´t imagine how much better it will feel to be able to teach a real investigator!!! after teaching we have companion study then dinner. then we have a zone meeting devotional thing. then at 10 i take a shower (i can now take a shower in under 10 minuets) then companion prayer and journal and bed.
i´m almost out of time!!
a little about my companion, she´s from a town just outside of nyc. she´s amazing!
i need to go so that i can attach pictures i guess. i love you all and hope you have a great week! i am loving the ccm and am learning so much!! miss you and love you!
love, hermana hansen