Hermana Bateman: MADE IT 1 WEEK!!!

Hola!!!

¿Como estas? It feels like i have been waiting for this day for years! i have this story i have just been writing in my head all week long of all the things that have happened! first full day here seemed like an eternity by the time it was lunch i felt like i had been awake or ever, but it got better after each day.So i wake up at 6:30 get ready for the day and than we have breakfast at 730. after breakfast we had class and met our instructor for the first time. He is funny he is from Mexico and has been off his mission for a little over a year now. he always has his phone out translating spanish words into english. he is pretty good at english which is a blessing because we definitely don't know spanish yet! ok but a normal day goes like this. we wake up at 630 have breakfast at 715 and than we usually have personal study time for an hour before our teacher comes. and than from about 9 to 1130 we have class and we will study the language with are teacher or he will teach us how to teach from preach my gospel or coach us on how to plan those kind of things! after that we have lunch and than we go to TALl which is just a program that helps you with your spanish. they have all the lessons on it and so you can learn words or phrases in spanish. it also teaches you grammar and conjugations. so we have that for an hour and than we have study time\ language study for an hour. and than we go to gym for an hour. i usually play volleyball or basketball when i go to the gym. after that we have daily planning and than dinner and this past week after dinner we have been teaching our investigator which i will talk about more later. than at 915 we have a little meeting with are zone and than its personal time\companionship prayer. and lights out. that a pretty normal day for me.

Ok so first day here we go to lunch and they have this weird looking crispy tortilla thing with some stuff on it so i grab one, and than next to it they always have soft tortillas because they usually always have beans and rice. anyway i grab a soft tortilla too and the worker starts talking to me in spanish and its my first day so i have no idea what he is saying and i{m just standing there smiling and nodding, and than another worker comes over and he is like that's really weird to get both kinds of tortillas and than they just start laughing at me and i just smile and am like gracias and walk away. after lunch we went to this big room where there was an ´'investigator´´ and we watched these missionaries teach him. and seriously it was so good. his name was alberto and he was such a good actor that a lot of us where almost in tears.but really the spirit was so strong and it was such a cool experience. later that night i met my branch president his name is pres. torres and he is from mexico. he is the short cute man who doesn't know very much spanish, but he is really nice.

day 3 was crazy! we went to class and learned how to prepare a lesson and than we had to plan a lesson for later that night to teach to our investigator. and we had to do it in spanish which you know i don´t know any! so hermana heacock and i planned our lesson and we went to meet him. his name is Luis and he is like in his early 20s. we were able to introduce him and ask him how he was doing, but as soon as he started talking we were both like WHAT IS HE SAYING we sort of made it through our lesson but it was terrifying and frustrating because i was able to pick out every few words and than in my head i has what i wanted to say to him but didn{t know how to say it in spanish so i couldn´t say anything! the next time we met though it was so much better. it's amazing how much you can learn in a day, because the next time we met with him we were able to communicate with him a lot better and he is very patient with us and will explain things as best he can to us.inthe second lesson we asked him if he would say a prayer and he said he didn't know how to so in the best possible way i could i tried to explain as much as i could in spanish to him. i told him we start off by saying querido padre celestial, and than you thank him for the things that you have and than you can ask him for the things that you need, and you end it in el nombre de Jesucristo Amén. so he started to pray and oh my goodness the spirit was so strong. Hermana Heacock and i left and just looked at each other and were like that was amazing!!! The power of pray is so real i have seen it so many times here. in my own experiences and with others. an elder had a similar experience as mine where his investigator prayed and they felt the spirit so strongly, and than another hermana said that she had been praying all day for the gift of tongues so that she would be able to commuicate and understand what her investigator was saying and it worked! it's one of my favorite things here being able to look around and just see kids my age praying all the time. we always pray in the comedor (cafeteria).and before we study. i hve never prayed so many times in a day as i do here and i love it! every night for my personal prayer i pray in spanish and i think its so cool that i already know how to pray in spanish and i know that Heavenly father will continue to help me learn the language!

it's almost the raining season here so we have had a couple days where the weather has been crazy! when it rains it really rains, but i love it because it never get super cold and so the rain feels so good! also crazy we had an earthquake a few days ago. i thought it was just a mini one because i didn't feel anything, but i saw the lamp post swaying back and forth, but than the next day i heard that it was like a 7.2 and that it did some damage in mexico, luckily we just got the after shock of it. ok so expecially this past week because of Easter week there has been fireworks going off like crazy all day long, and everyone says that most of them our fireworks but they're a few that say some are gun shots so a few of us decided that they have their own hunger games in Mexico and everytime a firework or ´´gunshot´´ goes off we act like its the sound of the cannon in the games. one elder in my district even had our teacher translate ´´may the odds be ever in your favor´´ into spanish!

oh man Easter was pretty amazing here! i had such a good day. so i started off the day by going to relief society where we talked about same sex marriage and the importance of marriage between MAN and WOMEN! we read a letter from the first presidency that states our position on the matter, and than we read paragraphs from The Family A Proclamation to the Family. after each paragraph we talked about the doctrine that we found in each one.it was a pretty good lesson and i just love that this document came out almost 20 years ago in a time where no one even thought about same sex marriage or any of these things, but it is just another example that Heavenly Father really does know everything and he will prepare his people. after relief society we had sacrament and than we watched a live broadcast from the Provo MTC. and guess who spoke? Pres. Uchtdorf!!!! i was so happy when they announced that it was him! he started off by talking about how his family was there and than he talked about how one of his sons or grandsons had to learn mandrin for his mission and he was like you think spanish is hard try learning Mandrin and than he said that German wa the best and easiest Latin language to learn! i love him he is awesome!!! He talked about how Jesus was crucified and resurrected and because of this he broke the band of death. he than talked about how during Christ-s ministry the apostles were kind of just witnesses and followed him. he started to specifically talk about Peter and how peter was a great man he had a lot of faith, but he also had fear. he told the story of when peter took that first step off the boat and onto the water and the amount of faith he had to do that, but when he saw the waves he became afraid and started to sink and asked jesus to save him. he than told the story of when Jesus told peter that he would deny him three times and peter proudly answers that he would never do that, but when the time came he did deny Jesus because he was afraid. Pres, uchtdorf than went on to say that once Jesus had been resurrected and met taught his apostles peter became a changed man! he was no longer afraid, every chance he had he would testify of Christ even if his life was being threatened. He had NO FEAR!!! Pres. Uchtdorf than told a story about a missionary who didn't have a ton of support from his family and because a mission was expensive he decided from the bery beginning that he would not waste a single moment. on the mission he soon got the nickname work horse, because from the moment he was out the doors he was talking to people and working hard. he got a new missionary companion who was new to the mission and started going to work. this companion didn't like the boldness and style of the older missionary so they had a hard time working together. there was one day when they were just on the street and split up to talk to people, and after two hours the younger companion hadn't talked to anyone he was to afraid where on the other hand this one elder had talked to numerous people successfully. they got back together, and seeing that his companion was frustrated asked him elder who are you? the younger elder thinking i got this answered with the primary answer i'm a child of God. his companion looked at him with love and than opened his scriptures to a verse in 3 nephi that says we are disciples of God and we can't be afraid. after that the younger elder decided he was going to talk to the next person who walked out of this fitness building. and of course it was this big body builder guy. who looked pretty intimidating, but he went up and talked to him and set up an appointment to meet again. this younger elder though still didn't like his older companions style of work and being so bold so they still had a hard time. after one particular rough day they were walking home and the younger elder just didn't want to talk about their day at all so they get home and he goes straight to bed hoping that his companion won't talk to him. this older elder though was a good missionary and grabbed his chair and sat next to his companions bed and said, "'elder there are two reasons why companions don't work well together. 1. when only one person is trying to do the right thing or 2. when they are both doing what is wrong'''. he than said so elder am i the one doing somthing wrong do i need to change? pres. uchtdorf pointed out that this missionary had so much humility and was such a hard worker.one thing that this elder also did was every morning he would look in the mirror and point to himself and say YOU FEAR NO ONE! he was a good missionary the average amount of baptisms in his mission were around 8 he had 100! so the message from his talk was NO FEAR!!! after that we had another meeting with one of the members of our stake presidency and we talked about temples and how we always need to be worthy to enter into the temple.than later that night we watched a talk that elder bednar had given a couple years ago about being a preach my gospel missionary. it was really good i recommend you go and look it up and watch it.

the spanish is coming a long they-re times when i get frustrated but than i think that i have already learned so much and i've only been hear for 9 days so its really kind of amazing. i have the missionary objective and baptism invitation memorized in spanish and i'm working on the first vision right now. Luis our '''investigator'' is getting baptized!! don't get to excited he said yes to everyone haha but it has been a really awesome experience teaching him and really being missionaries! my district is pretty awesome the other night we had a little extra time before our next meeting and we just started to sing hymns together. one elder is pretty good at singing and he was like start singing to me and i'll harmonize with you. i almost started laughing right than. luckily another sister was there and she started singing and we all just sang together. well i think that might be all. its been a crazy week with all sorts of emotions, but there is seriously no other place i would rather be right now than at the CCM in Mexico!!! i love it here so much and i know tha the church is true. everyday as i'm doing my personal and companionship studies it is just reaffirmed in my heart. and the scriptures have all the answers. as i've been studying them and reading them for someone else i can't go more than a few verses with out finding something that can help an investigator and myself. i'm so grateful for this opportunity to serve a mission, and am so happy that the lord trusts me to do his work!! i love you all so much, and sydo you're my favorite don't tell the others!!! i can't wait to hear from you!!!!

love

Hermana Bateman

me and my companion hermana heacock, and the other two girls are are roommates. hermana mills and hermana rucker and they are going to PROVO UT!!!! so find them and feed them yummy food!!! they're awesome