Wednesday, August 14, 2013

2 Weeks Down... 76 Weeks to Go!

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Hola,

It feels like I have been here for 4 months, cant believe it has only been 2 weeks! Things are still going well, the spirit is so strong and I am learning a lot. I never knew just how hard missionary work was though. I'm sure I won't really get just how hard it is until I'm in Ecuador. Most of the missionaries here are amazing and truly special spirits!

Iggy (the stuffed TY beanie baby iguana that Sara gave me at the farewell) is quite popular in the MTC! So this past week he came up in class and I told the Elders one of my tall tales. I told them that I had brought my pet Iguana with me and the church let me bring him because he is trained to lead blind kids. And they BELIEVED me......oh dear so funny. 18 year old boys!!! Of course I told them the truth later that night and it just so happened to be that on his tag it said his birthday was 8-12-1997. So Iggy´s birthday was yesterday, so my district celebrated his birthday and all the elders were so funny and excited to meet him!!! It was so much fun. We ate dessert from the cafeteria and one of the elders bought him a future missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints missionary tag from the store here!!! It looks so cute on him!

This is Iggy the Iguana

At the Farewell party with Iggy

Hola,

This past week has gone by so FAST compared to the first week.  The days are meshing together and flying by so quickly now.  Classes have been going well and Spanish is coming along however I feel like there is so much I need to learn.  One of our lessons with Carlos went on for over an hour when it was only suppose to last 20 minutes.  He is very stubborn! We have another investigator this week named Rogelio who is very nice and responsive unlike Carlos haha.  The investigators are our teachers so it is pretty intimidating to teach your teacher! However it amazes me that we are able to teach discussions in Spanish without notes.  This past Sunday I was called up by the branch presidency to give a talk on the apostasy at the beginning of the meeting so I was glad I had just taught Carlos that lesson the week before and was able to do give a 10 minute talk in Spanish.  I was able to bear my testimony and feel so strongly of the spirit.  Hopefully I don’t get called up this Sunday to give a talk again, they call you out of the audience however I’m hoping I can relax this Sunday!  We had a televised devotional last night and Richard G. Scott of the 12 apostles spoke.  I was able to sit next to Elder Lopez so it was good to talk home with him.   It was such a great devotional and he focused a lot on prayer and our relationship with our father in heaven.  He blessed us with the gift of tongues if we have faith and are obedient.

I actually met my mission president´s son, Elder Dennis, who is going to El Salvador! He is a super cool guy and I talked to him at lunch one day about his parents so I just know I’m going to love them! He leaves in a week and it just so happened that a sister I talked to the first week I was here met him and remembered me! She ran into me the other day and said ¨Sister Lyman your mission president´s son is here! ¨ So my companion actually spotted him one day in the cafeteria and now I see him all the time!  He told me he has a 15 year old sister that is living in Ecuador with his parents right now and going to a private school down there.  He will attend BYU when he gets off the mission and said that the church is actually paying for his schooling until his parents get back from their mission.  How cool is that??

 My companion and I also went and talked to the MTC president, President Pratt yesterday and as soon as we introduced ourselves and told him we were nurse specialist he was so NICE!! He said you are the two going to Ecuador!!! I’ve been wanting to meet you two Hermanas!!! He talked to us about Ecuador for awhile (he lived there for 7 years, and some of his family) and thanked us for being here.  We met with him to get special permission to use the computers for the medical program we will be using in the field.  I have access to all the missionaries’ files in my mission and Hermana Berrett actually attended 2 day training at the Provo MTC prior to coming here for nursing.  She told me they called her and asked her if she could attend.  Wish they would have called me, I would have flown into Utah for the training but I guess they figured since she lived in Utah it would be easy for her to go.  Oh well Hermana Berrett is going to show me the ropes! We have also started meeting with the MTC doctor during our gym time in order to be trained by him.  He is so sweet and nice and I love meeting with him. He taught us where to numb a toe before removing part of the toenail since ingrown toenails are frequent problem with the Elders.  He said to look it up on YouTube if we forget or just send them to a podiatrist! He is such a funny guy and I’m looking forward to learning more from him.

 Love ya'll

Hermana Lyman

This was the building that I had my classes in the first week! Had to take a picture with it since its named after my great X4 grandfather!!


The Ecuadorian flag Sara bought for a penny hung up in our room.


 This is the rock wall and fence that cover the entire 90 acres!!! Pretty cool, huh?

No comments:

Post a Comment