Adventures of a Californian Sister!: Week 2!

Hola lovely famila!

Wow it has been a crazy incredible week. The spirit is so strong here!! I have already learned so much. It almost seems impossible that I will learn the language, but I know my call is a divine call and the Lord wouldn´t have sent me spanish speaking if he didn´t know that I could do it. I truly know that nothing is possible without the Lord on my side. Apparently the first week is the longest, and oh it was LONG! haha I think it was mainly because we didn´t have a P-Day until today, which is 9 days! But looking back the time seemed to fly. Last night out whole district was saying that it felt like it was Christmas Eve because we were all so excited. Not because we don´t love it here, but because we wanted to talk to our families so much and go to the temple and have a break from studying our brains off. I feel so blessed to be here in the CCM (MTC) learning the gospel and Spanish. It is so gorgeous!! And we have so much space, the whole 90 acres is all of us. There are so many fields and basketball, volleyball and tennis courts. The workers keep it so well maintained. They are constantly working to keep it beatiful. Outside the walls of the CCM is a different world! The CCM is definitely the nicest place around, apart for the temple, which we had the amazing opportunity to go to today, it is gorgeous! The spirit that is at the Hous of the Lord, is like no other spirit, I could stay inside all day. The sessions are all in Spanish, it was exciting to see how much Spanish I could understand, or not understand haha. Either way, it was a great learning experience and I got to do the Lords work. There is no better feeling than that. On the way up there and back we were all scared for our lives; they all drive so LOCO haha. There dont really seem to be any rules... But we made it safely there an back reguardless of the circumstances.

My companions name is Hermana Michalsky, she is from Las Vegas and is going to New York, New York on her mission. She is really great and we really get along. We help motivate each other. This past week we have been teaching an investigator name Daniel Silva, we had our first lesson on Friday, and it was all in Spanish!! Uhhh what!? I have come to realize though, that it´s not what I say that matters its what they (the investigators) hear and feel that matters. The spirit converts, not us. The joy that comes when your message is accepted, and they say they know that it is true and they want to be baptized is incredible. The joy that I feel when I am teaching by the spirit, and helping change someones life is unlike any other joy that I have ever experienced. Yes, there is the disappointment and sorrow when an investigator doesn´t accept your messages, or doesn´t pray to know that it is true or doesn´t read when yoou made them promise to, but the joy that I felt when they know it´s true over powers it. Either way the message is true. And I will not give up on that person. Okay so something crazy-everyday like at least 20 times a day there is something that sounds like a gun shot that goes off, which really woun´t surprise me, because of our location, but apparently they are fireworks?? haha it´s kind of scary. I love my district, they are all so funny, they all call Hermana and I mom, they tell us all the time that they don´t know what they would do without us because we keep them in line haha. I always have to remember that they are only 18 and 19, I could have been their EFY counselor!! I acutally saw one of my EFY kids here, His name is Elder Chaney, it was so funny when I saw him because I didnt´t know that he was here, so I called him by his first name Ethan, but then quickly corrected myself. Small, small world. I have made so many connections with people here with the outside world. The Mormon world is seriously so small. Sunday was the best day ever. The spirit was so amazing the whole day, I guess that is why everyone says to just make it to Sunday, it made everything worth it.

Sorry that everything is so jumbled!! I miss yáll like crazy and think of you todos los dias.
Write me!!!

Hermana Shea

Hermana McCartt and Hermana Michalsky