Hola, all!

Sorry everything is out of order. I'll fix it one day....... Maybe.........

December 20, 2011

HAPPY BIRTHDAYs NATALIE AND MOMMA!!!
This week we got to host new sisters coming into the MTC. We helped them get all their books and to get to their rooms with their luggage, safely.
I got to host someone I knew from my freshman year of college: Lauryn Pearl Jensen! She's going to Nicaragua and spending three weeks here before going to the Guatemala MTC for six? I think. We are getting SO MUCH BETTER at working together during lessons and having unity. We have slip ups occasionally, but not too badly. This week, though, we had a doozy of a lesson with a man named Ping. He was Buddhist and from China, studying international business at USC and up here on break. He just wanted to check out what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes. He was asking a lot of questions, and by now, teaching was almost old hat. Until he asked a question, and in my reply to him, I accidentally? called the world irresponsible. i couldn't recover. It was crazy: I couldn't even form sentences that made sense, to try and fix what I had said. Seeing as how I didn't actually know what I had meant to say, it was difficult to backtrack. I was FREAKING OUT. I've probably never been so tongue-tied, yet continued to talk...in my life. Here was this very knowledgeable Buddhist studying international relations, and I was blubbering about saying, "oh, um, well, maybe I meant just all young men in the world are irresponsible." It was horrendous, to say the least. Luckily, Sister O'Farrell stepped in and said, "I think she means they don't all behave like they have the bigger picture..."
Okay, yeah. We'll go with that. The whole meeting was like that, it felt like, but this was the culmination.
He was a member.
I felt like I'd been Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher.
Earlier that day, we had taught another TRC investigator, Jose. We had such a good lesson. A good lesson is really when we all feel the Spirit, and honestly, our investigators teach us way more than we teach them!
We're changing to a Friday P-day, and hopefully I'll learn how to collect my thoughts by then. We fly out of SLC 8:05 on Monday the 26th, and I think all of us are a little freaked. Not really, though, comparatively, we could have gone out yesterday and today like all of our District and Zone. We had IN-field Orientation, and got to meet/be taught by/take pictures of/with, the missionaries form the training videos "The District, 1 & 2." It was crazy, but they were actually really good teachers and we learned so much about planning, working with members, statistics, and all sorts of things. Things here are weird, but good. Almost constantly, the Spirit will testify or prompt or reveal things to me, and everything goes so smoothly when I listen to the feelings I have. Thank you all for your letters and gifts and treats, by the way! Everyone is always saying how much my family must like me!! :) Anyway, (Sister Arts says "anyways" is not a word. I told her she would have to use the correct subjunctive tense, if I had to say anyway;) we were learning about setting goals of how many people to talk to a day, and lessons to teach, and discussions with a member present and things like that: it was kind of feeling like um, multi-level marketing-ish, when all of the sudden, (Elder) Brother Christensen says that we should set a goal, exactly as high as the mission goal, and really no higher. I was blown away. We were learning in that workshop about everything being in its right balance: a cookie with too much salt, sugar, baking powder, etc...type thing. It was like, woah, if we really were all about numbers and helping our membership grow, we would not be getting taught to set exactly as high goals as our mission average. A little testimony building moment, to me.
Sister Arts, on the other hand, got hit on, during one of the ending workshops. OH! And we were in devotional, when some Elders behind us started making small talk. No big deal, it's nice of them, blah, blah.
Two and a half hours later, Sister Arts pulls out her journal to write some inspiration down (during The Mountain of The Lord movie, about the Salt Lake Temple) and BOOM! there's a 3x5 card with the Elder's name and address on it.
It. was. crazy. and sooooo funny. She's much better at taking notes of what happened during the week, and a faster typist...boo. I'll just try and keep notes during the week! Ha ha Our District left and we're very sad, but we can still get our mail, even with the district leader gone, so all's well;)
Mom, I sent home the Christmas decorations, WE ALL LOOOOVED THEM!!!!!!! And PICTURES COMING, SOON!!!!!!
I love you all, and I know without a doubt there's a God in Heaven, because I feel so strongly of it all the time: an investigator described it as " a pressure on my heart, not so much that it hurts," but just so much I know it's true.
Can you imagine feeling that all the time? Welcome to my life.
I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!
and I miss you ;)
Googma (Love in Cuebano), 
Sister Jenna Bothwell