Gracias por su misión

Mi primera semana en el programa de español!

I don't know how to write sufficiently about everything!

I got transferred last Monday night and on the drive home I had to attempt to introduce myself in Spanish and navigate us because they said I could sit in the front seat (mistake). Needless to say, we got lost a few times :|

I like my companions, I am with Hermana Morley and Hermana Livingstone. Hermana Morley is in her last transfer, she only has 5 weeks left. Hermana Livingstone has only been here for 7 weeks. They said they were surprised to get me but were excited! I'm no longer worried about transfers, now I am worried that they will keep Hermana Livingstone and I in this area to struggle with our beginner spanish together :|| They are very funny and we laugh a lot together. They are also very different from me but that's okay. Sometimes I feel like I'm the third wheel because I am very quiet person but now that we have to speak Spanish during the day I am much quieter and communicate mostly nonverbally because my Spanish needs improvement. Also they talk about guys and tiktok and clothes and social life and everthing imaginable that I don't find that interesting. But we also have a good time talking about things that I do like and things in general...

I'm really excited about my area! We live in Woodbridge (everyone speaking spanish calls it Goodbridge) We have so much potential and a lot of friends to teach. The city itself is nice, we live like directly adjacent to a shopping center. It's a lot different from Alexandria, there are way more trees and buildings are more spread out. We have 2 wildlife refuges and a state park in our area!!

Uhhh so I went on last time about being glad about knowing how to teach in English. Teaching in Spanish is not like teaching in English. Well sort of. I have the hardest time remembering what I should say because my brain is so occupied with knowing how to speak Spanish. I am actually surprisingly good at understanding. I am horrible at speaking. I react to what they're saying through facial expressions and nodding my head but as for teaching I don't say much at all yet. Mostly just bear testimony.

Okay first funny story of the week. Let me give you a bit of a backstory. My companions really like to eat weird healthy food - when I got here I looked in the pantry and the fridge for something to eat and was a bit intimidated by the food selection. They told me they'd been dying to go to Trader Joes (for some reason), and it is 15 minutes away from our house, but it's outside our zone. They asked our district leaders and they said no. They asked our zone leaders and they said no. They said they were going to call our mission leader, Sister Duckworth, and I was like, no way. I thought it was a joke but they called her and I was dying laughing the whole time because I couldn't believe they would call her about going to Trader Joes. She said we couldn't go. They were devastated. So now President and Sister Duckworth are probably ticked off that some Hermanas called them to ask if they could go to Trader Joes. just kidding, they were very nice to us about it, but now I am associated with them, and forever carry this with me. We read the adjusting to missionary life section about managing anger. XD I don't understand them

Other funny story. Yesterday we had a lot of 'sunday services,' which means a video call with a member and some of our friends we're teaching to share a quick spiritual thought. Basically a mini sunday meeting. We were doing one on WhatsApp and there's a limit of 8 people. One of our friends we tried calling a bunch, Roberto, called us about 5 minutes after it started and we already had 8 people, so we had him video call us on our other phone. We turned off our camera and muted ourselves on the sunday service call. He answered and said "hola Hermanas" and got up from him bed and his hair was sticking straight up. He has really long curly hair and so it was really funny. We held him up to watch the video call on our phone. The situation was so ridiculous so all three of us were laughing so hard but we couldn't make any noise because we couldn't mute us on Roberto's end because he needed to hear the meeting. Our arms got tired from holding up the phone so we propped up the phone on Hermana Morley's cup which made us laugh even more.

We had a lot of blessings this week. We had a really good lesson with one of our friends named Cesar, and we asked him to say the closing prayer. He didn't want to because he didn't feel clean enough to. We told him that he could do it and that Satan was doing everything he could to stop him from praying. Cesar said the closing prayer and after he finished he paused. He said, "Hermanas, I don't know what I'm feeling right now. When I was praying, I felt like my chest was on fire." We told him it was the Holy Ghost. He thanked us for giving him that experience.

Another blessing is our friend Erick! They found him on Facebook and he is the sweetest, smartest guy. Moved here from Mexico. We dropped a book of mormon off at the church for him and had a lesson where we read the first chapter. He is really thoughtful and open. He loved in the first chapter how much God showed his love for Lehi and his family. He had a lot to say and we are really excited to teach him everything! He also had a lot of things to say about things he's observed from other religions that he doesn't understand. He speaks very fancy, refined Spanish and I want to improve my Spanish so I can discuss the Gospel with him!

The first day I was so disoriented, down on myself for not knowing Spanish well enough, and generally sad. I felt so much better once we had our lessons. I knew that this is why I'm here. Not to be a gospel theologian, not to know my companions perfectly yet, or be fluent in Spanish --- but to teach these people.

Oh yeah, about the title. That's just a thing we sometimes say to each other instead of just saying "gracias." It's very funny

Oh yeah something funny my companion always messes up on is saying 'chocolate calcetina' (chocolate sock) instead of 'chocolate caliente' (hot chocolate)

well, adios for now!

Hermana Smalley