#letter5

Sincerely, JSH

Do Not Let Your Attachment To The Past Outweigh Your Confidence In The Future​

Hello, hello!!! Another week has passed and now it is Feb! Can you believe it? Time flies...when you are having fun! Heard about the Superbowl and that the Patriots won. Booo! Honestly, I would not have been happy if either team won. I heard it was a good game though which is good since last year that was not the case. My teachers practically acted the end of it out for us! It was fun! I sure do miss watching sports! Hopefully, you all had a wonderful week! Time is flying here and I only have two weeks left until I leave for Ecuador! Crazy! Next week will be my last PDay and my last of everything at the CCM. We take our goodbye pictures on Monday. They do a cool slideshow for everyone that is leaving after we watch a movie on Sundays. Wondering how I feel about it...well a little bit of everything, but mostly excited for the adventure that awaits. As usual, I have learned about a years worth of material in a week. Even after 4 weeks of being here, I am surpirsed by how much we learn and do everyday. Before I came out here, I thought that serving was the least I could do for someone who sacrificed so much for me, but now after being here I know that my mission is YET another generous blessing from him. I will always be in debt to Jesus Christ, our Savior. I saw so many blessings of my mission before I got on that plane to Mexico City and everyday I see so many more blessings!

This is a picture of us drawn for our District on the whiteboard

Be Like the Engine that said I THINK I CAN

I think we know the story about the little engine that said I THINK I CAN and I think we can all apply it to our lives in some way or another whether it is in school, a job, family issues, or a relationship. Whatever life throws at us we need to have the attitude I THINK I CAN. and continue on. We can do amazing things with what we are given and experiences in our lives. For example, I was told about a little boy who is named Nathan Glad. He was born with a brittle bone disease. Doctors said that he would not survive birth. He did. He was born with 27 broken bones. He is now 8 years old, but he is confined to a wheelchair because his bones are so fragile. They do not know how long he will live. One day his parents said that he asked if he could pray. So, he said the prayer and guess what was the first thing he said...THANK YOU FOR MY BODY. Every morning he says...Today is going to be a great day. Hopefully, his story inspired you as much as it inspired me. Attitude determines our altitude. It determines our success. It determines what we learn. It determines how bad or good our experiences are. It determines who we are and will become. Lets all strive to have better attitudes NO MATTER what life throws at us, no matter how much we hate something and I think we will be surprised how much differenct life is when we have positive thoughts!

Solo Espanol

Find satisfaction in your progress while acknowledging that perfection may still be distant. This past Sunday we had an amazing devotional by the director here at the CCM. He is young and served his mission in Chile Concepcion. He was a wonderful public speaker. He reminded me of Nicole. He was incredibly enthusastic and motivating. He started out saying that he hears a lot of English here on campus then asked us what does speak your language mean. Then, he asked why is it so hard to speak your language. Different missionaries threw out different answers like we cannot be ourselves, we speak really slow, it takes too long, it takes too much concentration, and we only know church words in Spanish. Then, he discussed how we qualify for the gift of tongues. One thing that really stuck out to me was that we need to do EVERYTHING we can before we ask for help from the Lord. That the Lord expects us to do our part before he helps us. What great advice. Are you doing everything that you can do. Think about it. As a district, it really got to us. We are learning Spanish, but we speak English at lunch and gym. We could do better. That night was really spiritual for us because one of the Elders spoke up and said that he had never seen a miracle, but believed that we could make a miracle happen if we spoke solo espanol and worked really hard these last two weeks. That before we go to Ecuador or Honduras we could speak really good Spanish if we give everything we have into it and ask the Lord for help. That night we all commited to do it. We all bore our testimonies. We all knew it was going to be hard, but we know it will come eventually. We have been doing really well. There has been a couple of times that we have slipped especially today since it is PDay, but we are trying and working harder than ever.

Futbol...the real kind

Yes, I said it! I found some Hermanas that wanted to play! HAPPY DAY! It was so much fun! We played for like an hour and half! We are going to play during gym time everyday now! Hip hip horray! I sure have missed soccer a ton and playing with all of our South American friends!

Nursing Business

I got trained on what I am doing in Ecuador by the nurse this morning! It made me really excited. She showed me where I will be charting if there are problems, what I will be doing, and the website I will be using. I need to get my username from the nurse in Salt Lake City and I will be able to look more at the website tomorrow. She said I will find out a lot more information when I get to Ecuador because every mission president has you do different things. She gave me a bunch of medical spanish words and phrases to start studying. She said I will have a phone. She said that I might be helping the people in Ecuador but it just depends because I am not licensed down there. She also said I could be talking in zone conferences to educate the missionaries. If you guys have more questions...let me know! Not a whole else has happened this week other than studying and continuing to learn Spanish! The teachers are really creative here so they have a lot of fun games that we play to help us learn! Like we played scattegories, but with spanish grammer like we had to make a word with por or para. We had to think of an animal. We had to form a sentence with ser and estar. We are continuing to teach, but we are teaching each other these last two weeks. So, we are both the teachers and the investigators. We make up profiles of friends or family that we know really well that are not members then they have to help us. I really like being the investigator because it helps me be a better teacher. I have learned a lot about how to teach with someone else. It is hard and really is a learned skill. I am really grateful that I am learning how to teach better! FYI...The keyboards are weird down here so sorry about the puncuation. Love you guys! Have a great week and be safe! Love always, Hermana Pemberton