Still Here...

Family!!! You all sound like you are doing so well!!! I don't know if I have told you....but I'm lovin the letters!! Gracias!!!! Really it is such a boost to hear from someone and you are all so encouraging. Mom the packages are AMAZING! I felt weird getting a package from you on mothers day insteado f the other way around but wo that was the best because it was unexpected and mothers day was hard. I miss you.

Spanish makes me feel dumb. I am tired of feeling dumb! Half the time I really don't know what is going on and it is so frustrating to not being able to communicate everything I want to. There were some really frustrating moments this week. I am working hard at trying to learn spanish and trying to be obedient so it is kind of frustrating that I don't feel or see the improvement I want. At the same time...it has been amazing and such a learning experience tosee how when we have faith the Lord blesses us. We were "invited" to start going into our lessons without any spanish notes. Just go talk. That is a piece of cake for the rest of our district haha but pretty much seems impossible for us. But we realized we were scared to go in without notes, and fear isn't faith. So we decided we would try to rely on the Lord insteadof our notes. It was so crazy, we had planned to teach the plan of salvation..we went in and seriously our spanish is sooo horrible...it has got to be pain ful to talk to us! We take forever to get one thought across. so we realied we would not have time for the whole lesson. we had the thought to just share one scripture...so we did..and our investigator started crying. We looked at each other like what do we do! We didn't want to talk because it just felt so good. We testified...even though the words we were saying probably didn't make sense haha. We just realized that it is not our spanish that teaches them it is the spirit. And even though we did not teach the whole plan of salvation, we only shared one tiny part, the spirit was so strong there and our investigator came closer to Christ. I just feel like I am getting so much more out of this than I will give to anyone. I am so happy to be on a mission.

A branch presidency wife shared a story with us...of this convert who knew the church was true because of some missionaries. The sisters knoced on her door and started sharing a message, their spanish was so bad she had no idea what they were saying but she said she knew whatever they were saying was true. I was kind of bummed and kind of excited to ehar that story. Maybe I am needed in a situation like taht haha where someone needs to just feel something not understand it by the words haha! Elder Holland said, "Christ had the same wish, that it could be better,easier or different at times.If you are going to call yoru self his disciple or missionary how dare you ask to get by without some little price, a few moments in the garden with tears, a few steps toward calvary.it was never meant to be easy, it was not easy for the Son of God himself."

So the Lord seriously sends me humor to be able to make it through. This week though the humor was so random! We went to devotional and sat down inbetween some elders. The devotional started and this elder plops his foot up on his leg, like you know how guys cross their legs the guy way, but he had his shoe off! So that was on the left side. Then this foreign elder on our other side, idk if he was nervous or what but he was bouncing his leg, like he was in a hurry, wehn you move it moves the whole row. So we were bouncing up and down with a stinky foot in our face through the whole devotional. Sister Lynn the sister from Taiwan in our room is so funny. She has pretty good English but she will still say the funniest things. One thing that is hilarious is she doesn't have to shave her legs because she doesn't have "fur" haha. And her and I were the only ones in the room gettting ready one morning and I turn around and she has her arms up and tweezers out. Lol she plucks her armpit hair...ouch!!! Tate you will appreciate this one..The other night we were waiting on one sister to be able to turn off the light...she ws finally ready so we turn off the light then we hear this from sis Lynn, "now i can scratch my bum" lol! She always tells me I could buy the cutest shoes in Taiwan because I guess all the cute shoes come in the small sizes there. I am so grateful for a companion that will laugh with me, we physically could not keep running the other day in gym because we were laughing so hard. I am grateful the Lord makes our weaknesses seem funny instead of seem impossible haha.

We heard from Elder D. Todd Christofferson this week! Those talks are always soo good, but my favorite part is always the end. When you hear, see and feel an apostle bear testimony of Christ, it is so powerful. They also always sort of bless us at the end too and I like that, haha. My favorite thing he said is he was talking about how missionaries have the same commission as apostles, so they see us as their companions! Cool, but he was saying how important and grand our calling is, but the Lord will magnify us to be able to fulfill it, and (this was my fav part) ¨through angels and the spirit He will be with us." They always just make any feelings of inadequacy or fear go away and you have this excitement to go talk people!

Mothers day was brutal! We look forward to Music and the Spoken word but someone should have warned us that it is all about families on mothers day! It was just this chain reaction, those lil kids made me miss Ella and Reese, and then it was all about moms so I was thinking about mom and ....man we were crying through the whole thing haha. Hermana Walker and I are embarrased to cry infront of eachother for some reason, so we were both like tilted the other way in our chairs crying haha!

A sister came up to us and told us this story...of two lil twin boys. one got placed in a room with a bunch of toys and cried. the other got placed in a room with manuer and was so excited because he knew their must be a pony in there if there was that much poop! Lol then she gave us a handful of milkduds and said you need to have a good attitude about everything...even poop! haha.

The kung fu elder is doing really well. From all your letters sounds like he is part of the fam now. We asked to take a picture with him, we wanted a ninja pose with him...obviously ... and we wanted to look legit so we asked him to teach us a few moves that we could do in the pictures. It was so funny cause he started do all this crazy moves even though we just wanted a picture so he just needed to choose one and hold still. Holy cow though...He could have talked for hours about this. It got our whole district up and practicing these punches and stuff haha, but I think it made him feel really good and we got to know him a lot and our whole district became better friends. We just realized how when you sincerely ask someone about something they are interested in you really get to know them.

Everyone in their letters keeps saying...its ok if you write in spanish I can translate it on the computer or something...haha like you all think i am not writing in spanish for your sake. I do love you guys and want you to understand me but also I just am not at that point yet! I only have one day to write so I need to do it fast! So maybe in the future I will be writing in spanish! Lo siento! I love you all!!! Hope you have a good week!! I would love some pics if you get the chance :)

Love,
Hermana Mulliner (sha)