Week 3 - Halfway There!

Hello everyone! 

This week was awesome...except I was DYING to find out where Kenzie had been called to! I'm soo jelous of the people in Dallas Texas because they get to be with my best friend for a year and a half! 

On Valentines Day my teachers kept asking me if I had family in Mexico City. Every time I said no, they seemed weirded out, and I was weirded out too! Haha well later that day, I got called down to the reception center. No one ever gets called down there, unless they're in trouble, so I was SO nervous. Guess what?! They gave me an order of roses from my dad! It completely made my day, and then a little while later they called me down to the post office. He sent me chocolates too! Best Dad ever award!!! :) 

My companion is hilarious. It's kind of a problem, because sometimes when we teach our "investigators" (my teachers) we can't stop laughing! This week after we taught one of our teachers, she pulled us aside and told us our Spanish and our lesson was the best she has heard from us the whole time we have been here. I was so happy!! For sacrament meeting, we all write talks and then people are randomly selected to give them. I can understand the Americans who speak Spanish, but usually not the natives. Guess what?! This last Sunday I understood almost EVERYTHING! The gift of tongues is real :) The temple is closed for remodeling, but today we got to go to the visitors center. It was AMAZING! I want to go back when I can go through! Oh, and I understood all of the Spanish there too! Our Latina friends left for their missions yesterday, and it was so sad. I have come to absolutely love those girls. Luckily new ones come today, and I'm sure they will be just as great :)

 The Mexican food tasted like rubber this week, and the American food was good! It was strange. I helped in the cafeteria for a service project this week, and now I am SO much more grateful for those workers. I had to wrap probably 300 burritos (maybe that is why the Mexican food tasted weird) and it was hard work!! I cannot believe they do that everyday! We have really funny experiences with Spanish all of the time. One elder in my district kept mixing up the words "better" and "woman" in our lesson, and ended up saying some not-so-good things! When the Latino Elders don't think we understand them, they will tell us they want to marry us and things like that. We respond in Spanish and they are so embarrassed! One elder told us that his dad was 86 and he has 24 siblings. We figured that we were not understanding him correctly, so we clarified with him for a good 10 minutes! His dad is indeed 86, and he does have 24 siblings. Kind of crazy! Everyone LOVES looking at pictures of my family. No one can believe how tall my dad is. All of the Hermanas want to marry my brothers, and none of them believe Ben is only 14. Oh my! Embarrassing story time. In one of the bathrooms, the doors do not lock! Well the other day, I got one to lock and I was so excited!...then I realized it was permanently locked! I was locked in the stall! The hermanas in my district and I were laughing SO hard! I had to do some crazy ninjas skills to get myself out of there! Our district saying is, "Remember the people." I love it! Whenever things get hard around here, we just have to remember the people who we are preparing to serve, and that makes it so much easier! Things here are still great! I cannot believe I have been here for 3 weeks! Time is flying by :) Well, I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love, Hermana Roestenburg 

Week 2

Hi everyone!!!

Now that I have gotten used to things here, I love it!! This week was amazing! The MTC was dedicated, and I was able to be here for it!! President Oaks came, and seeing him was so cool. Hearing him pray and share his testimony with us was amazing! Spanish is coming a long good..I think? Some days I feel like I know a lot, and some days I don't know if I know anything. I will never again make fun of people who come home speaking their mission language still, because I am already mixing my English with Spanish. In my journal I won't even notice it, but I will constantly write "y" instead of "and" and make small mistakes like that. 

I love the Hispanic missionaries here. We are really good friends with some of the Latina Sisters, (even though we can't speak to them very well) and they help us with our Spanish. The Latino Elders are easier to understand, I think they speak slower! They are the nicest people though. You have to be careful about what you say around them, because if you tell them you like something of theirs, they give it to you and insist that you keep it! They are so giving with what little they have. It's amazing to see. Every day they tell me I look like a princess and my name is "Hermana Princess" because my last name is too hard for them. They are adorable. This week we had a "stress release" class, and we had to do a relay race...well all of the sisters tried to tell the instructor that we couln't run in our skirts, but she kept telling us it would be fine....it was not fine. Every time it was a sisters turn to run, she had to hold down her skirt, and it would still fly up! It was HORRIBLE!! hahahaha!! So we stopped that activity fast. 

The President of the CCM, President Pratt and his wife were in Utah when I first got here, so I did not meet them till this week. Everyone warned us that they are very strict and have high expectations...which they do! Anyways, last night we had a family home evening because one of the districts in my zone was leaving. We got done setting up, and my district leader and another Hermana decided to see if they could fit in the back shelves. They did! We were laughing, and one hermana took a picture (which is only allowed on P-day), and then the room kind of went silent. I turned around and say President Pratt staring back at us. It was horrible, especially because my district is usually the perfect district that gets used as an example all of the time! The missionaries climbed out of the cupboard, and President asked if we were practicing contorting our bodies for missionary service. We all apologized to him, and then he seemed fine! Ha it was definitely a good learning experience for us, and I'm sure we will not be goofing around ever again. Sidney Williams got here this week, and Madi Hill and Josh Falcon left, but for a time there were five of us here from Jordan including Matt and me! It's so good seeing people you know! I received my first letter today, and found out mail takes 15 days to get here and 15 days to get there! Way sad! Thank you though to those of you who have sent things! Oh we teach fake investigators, and right now I have 2! Sometimes the lessons go really well and sometimes the investigators do way funny things, and it's hard to take them seriously! I am so excited to teach real investigators though!! Being a missionary is such an awesome experience :) I will talk to you all next week! 

Love, 

Hermana Roestenburg

Week 1 - Hello Mexico CCM (MTC)!

Hello everyone!!
 I miss you all so much, but everything here in the CCM, or Mexico MTC has been great! I traveled here with 19 elders and one other sister. When we got to the Mexico airport, one other elder and I had to do all of the translating...It was so hard! We were able to get our points across though, and we ended up in the right place, so I guess it is all good! I did not like the first night! No one was in my room, so I was all alone. Around midnight my roommates and my companion finally showed up, so that made everything better! 

My family probably won't believe this, but I am like the pro-bed-maker here! I help everyone make their bed because they all struggle with the bunk-beds. Matt Jensen, from school, is here and so is Madi Hill. Matt is my district leader. There are 8 of us in my district, and 24 in my zone. 13 girls live in my house...and guess what?! My house is PINK! so are my sheets!! I was soo happy. The beds here are rock hard. I do not notice when I fall asleep because I'm always exhausted, but when I wake up I am so sore! It's really funny. Class here is good. Both of my teachers are named Hermano Martinez. They speak Spanglish with us most of the time. In the morning we do a short language lesson, and then they teach us how to teach. I can bear my testimony and pray in Spanish! My accent is horrible....but that's okay!! In Utah I felt like I knew some Spanish, in Mexico, I realized I do not! We are teaching an investigator right now, her name is Lenina, and the language barrier is the hardest part. We have to focus solely on having the spirit and testifying because we struggle with words. I can only speak in the present tense, so trying to explain things about the past or future is almost impossible! We got her to commit to baptism though, so that was an awesome experience! 

Gym time is the best time, and I love running...who thought I would EVER say that?! The Mexican food here is really good! I get tamales from breakfast :) hah but the American food is sketchy. We always have fruit, cereal, and nutella sandwiches..so those are smart alternatives. My companion and I could not be more different even if we tried, but we get a long and work together well, so that is all that matters! Her name is Hermana Huff, she is 22 years old from Oregon. I already knew her because we traveled to DC together to get our visas!  The spirit here is so strong. You find people praying everywhere you go, and the elders treat the hermanas like princesses! This really has been a great experience so far! I miss you all!! 

Love,

Hermana Roestenburg :)

Her pink house!

Hermana Roestenburg and Hermana Huff