December 14, 2015 Dos Meses

It has been another great week here in San Luis Potosí! It has been a difficult one because tons of people aren't in their homes, or are in their homes but are busy so we didn't have a ton of success teaching people this work, but we are working super hard to find more investigators!

Highlights

-I hope you all had the chance to watch the First Presidency Christmas devotional last Sunday (Dec. 6th) because it was awesome! We watched it in Spanish of course so there was a lot I didn't understand, but one part really stuck out to me. I'm not sure if this is exactly what was said because...Spanish...but I think one of the speakers said something along these lines. When you see Christmas lights on trees or houses, use them as a reminder that Jesus Christ, the LIGHT and life of the world, is the reason for the season!

-Wednesday: My comp and I were riding a bus back from lunch and we always try to contact the people we're sitting by to see if we can teach them and their families a lesson on a later date, so there was an open seat next to me...but then like 8 Jehovah's witnesses missionaries boarded the bus and one of them sat by me so that contact didn't happen haha. It was really bizarre because they felt like our rivals or something haha.

-Thursday: Micaela, the woman I wrote about last week, dropped us because her husband doesn't believe. It's really sad because the gospel makes her so happy and she has believed it all, but they are SUCH a unified couple that she is sacrificing a little bit of her happiness for his sake. She said she will continue reading the Book of Mormon though! And she really is a woman of her word so I'm hopeful. It was really really sad but we left there feeling the spirit so strong and feeling such peace because there is not a doubt in my mind that one day, when her husband is ready, the will both accept the gospel. I could just picture her in white. It was awesome.

-Friday: The elders we eat with every day traveled to Aguascalientes on Thursday for a meeting and so they brought us back these ginormous lollipops so please enjoy my comp and I during planning Thursday night. Haha oh and also this day we taught a recent convert, Ricarda, and it was cold in her house and I didn't say anything about being cold but she said "Oh mi guerita, estas tan fría!" which means "Oh my little American, you look so cold!" then forced a sweater on me..so I got a new sweater this week!

-Saturday: We had Little Caesar's pizza for lunch with a member and it tasted just like it does in the states! Also we got a good lecture from our neighbor who hates us...but it's okay because she is a wonderful daughter of God whom we love dearly.

-Sunday: We didn't have any water in our aparetment this morning so that was interesting haha...but we got to watch all three sessions of the dedication of the Tijuana Mexico temple and it was awesome! We are so blessed to have so many temples around the world and generally authorities directing the affairs of the Church here on the earth, I challenge you all to try to make it to the temple this week!

-Today marks two full months as a missionary! I am so grateful for this time I've had and look forward to a wonderful 16 more months to come! It has definitely been full of ups and downs but I really could not be happier to be in the service of the Lord!

-My companion and I really want a Christmas tree in our apartment, so anytime we're out walking the streets and see a tree we like, we talk about how we're going to steal it "a las dos de la mañana" so now that's our little joke. Anything we want to do, but can't, we say we'll do at two in the morning.

I hope you all have a wonderful week with finals and whatever other craziness is going on! Take a little time to reflect on the reason for the season! I love you all and pray for you all the time! 

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Bird​

December 7, 2015 Christmastime is Here

Adventures at the mall today with a classic Kendall face. Christmastime is here!! (As is winter)

Hello friends and family! 

This week has been SO much better than last week! I still don't understand everything and we still don't have a ton of investigators, but we're working really hard and I'm really growing to love it! 

Some highlights of the week:

-There are these two older ladies (mother and daughter) who live across the street from us and can't come to church because they have some health problems, but their testimonies are so strong. We visit them every night to help them around the house and share a lesson and it is always such a great way to end the night! One of these days I will send a picture/video of them. They're hysterical and always sing and dance for us.

-We have two investigators, Ramon and Micaela, who are an older married couple that are seriously progressing. I LOVE visiting them because Micaela always gets so excited about everything we have to say! They have tons of challenges but are such a cute and happy couple. We're hoping they get baptized in January! Also Micaela loves me because I remind her of a little girl she used to babysit when she was younger so that rocks!

-Earlier last week my comp accidentally locked our keys in our apartment...and we didn't have any spare keys...so we had Hermano Ruben in our ward break into our house for us so we were saved! It was quite an adventure.

-Apparently every sister missionary in our mission (but on more occasions, American sister missionaries) gets kissed by a random man while they're in the streets...so more news to come on that I suppose. Pray that that won't happen to me haha.

-One day I was seriously SO FULL and could not for my life finish my lunch (which is really rude here) so the Hermana who was feeding us left the room for like 5 minutes and Elder Martinez saved my life and finished my food for me! Man I am so grateful that we eat with elders every day.

-On Friday we had a zone meeting and I found out that for Christmas we're having an activity with our whole state next Tuesday which means I GET TO SEE THE PEOPLE FROM MY DISTRICT IN THE MTC!!!! We also get to watch a Disney movie on Christmas and call our families and man I just love Christmas!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and are getting in the Christmas spirit. Christmas is really such a special time of year. Don't forget why we celebrate it! Please take a minute to watch "A Savior is Born" (I think...in Spanish it's called Ha Nacido Un Salvador) on lds.org or mormon.org to remember why we celebrate this wonderful time and share the video with friends and family!

I love you all! I think about and pray for you often! Thank you for being in my life!!

Love, 

Hermana Bird

Our zone leaders (the elders who share our ward and that we eat with every day) brought us a Christmas surprise on Saturday!

November 30, 2015 A Week in the Life of a Blonde American Girl in Mexico

Hola friends and fam! 

This week has been quite the roller coaster of emotions and unfortunately I am running very very short on time so I will give you gist of everything.

Tuesday:

-I was winked at and "hey baby"'d

-the member who was supposed to feed us lunch forgot about us...which my trainer says never happens..and so far no one else has forgotten us so that's good!

-I got seriously blisters from my shoes but my feet were fine the rest of the week

Wednesday:

-Everyone here really says "Mi casa es su casa"

-A recent convert in our ward named Ruben brought us sandwiches (tortas) for breakfast because apparently sandwiches are a breakfast food in Mexico

-We take buses everywhere and for some reason no one wanted to stop for us this day..seriously on multiple occasions there would be 4 buses that passed us before we could catch one..and on one of them the bus driver didn't give me my change because I'm American so that's cool...

-My trainer said we live in one of the nicest apartments in the mission...which surprised me..but I'm thankful for what I have!

-We had our first meal with a member (we eat lunch with members and our zone leaders every day because we share a ward) and they made red spaghetti and green spaghetti which was interesting

-No one drinks water here. Always Coke or fruit water or horchata or Fresca

-We had interviews with the mission president and I cried a little more because it had been a rough few days..but the rest of the day was great!

Thursday:

-We had a few lessons today and about an hour after our lesson with Ruben, he came by our apartment and dropped off enchiladas and Coke so that was cool!

-The members that fed us today made us a "Thanksgiving feast" (because one of the zone leaders is also American) of storebought rotisserie (no idea how to spell that) chicken and homemade potato salad. It was super thoughtful!

-We always have lessons in weird places. I think we've had two lessons in people's homes and the rest are in random stores or on people's doorsteps and things like that.

Friday:

-I wrote down D&C 

-"Guera" means "light" in Spanish..not like a light bulb, but lie light-skinned, light hair, etc, so everyone here calls me "guerita." Seriously, members, people on the street, I can't tell you how many times in a day I hear that word...but I stick out like a sore thumb here so that's different haha.

-Everyone here also says "Lo que pasa es que.." which basically means "So what had happened was..." haha I love it.

-This night we had a SUPER poweful lesson with an older couple named Ramon and Micaela (oh yeah, all of our investigators are 50+ too so that's not what I expected haha) and it was AWESOME. Ramon knows the Bible super well and likes to test us on it haha but they're super great people and we're meeting with them again this week!

-Also some lady rejected us because I'm American..sad day. 

-Today I couldn't finish my lunch at the members house and apparently that is really really bad but I seriously thought I was going to die. And they were mole enchiladas which apparently make a lot of Americans sick..my trainer even got sick but luckily I didn't. She says I have a super tough stomach if I can handle mole so I should be fine! One of our zone leaders is from Nicaragua and he's such a baby when it comes to chile haha but I've been able to handle that too so things are looking good!

Saturday:

-Ruben brought us more sandwiches..

-I'm still not unpacked

-I was whistled at again

-I saw a sign that said one American dollar is equivalent to 16.55 pesos and when I was in the MTC it was equivalent to 15.4 pesos so that's nuts

Okay I'm out of time to finish writing the finer details of this week..but the most important thing to know is it has been good but hard. I have written down that I wanted to share D&C 78:17-19. Not sure why, but read it!

Love you all and have a great week!

Love, Hermana Bird

my trainer

at the mall today, yay

November 24, 2015 I Made It!

Hello friends and fam!

I'm officially here in my first area of the mission! It has been an emotional last few days to say the least..but a great few days as well.

My last few days at the CCM were so bittersweet. My district seriously became a family and we were all in denial about leaving so we didn't really prepare for goodbye..so that smacked us in the face pretty hard. My companion, Hermana Caldwell, became my best friend and the elders became my brothers. And my teachers were angels! I was seriously blessed with the best. The majority of us had to leave Monday morning, so on Sunday night the elders gave us blessings and we talked and said goodbye until way late, went home and packed, then left our casa at 1:45am to leave for the airport. My companion and two elders from my district are here in my mission as well, but the rest of them left later than us. We arrived at the airport around 3 in the morning, checked our bags, and went through security then they literally changed our gate four times..so that kept us moving. But we got there early and our flight was delayed (but no one was open to buy calling cards so I'm sorry I couldn't call you Mom, Dad, & Austin! :() so we just did a lot of sitting around.

Once we boarded the plane at about 6:15, we had to wait forever to take off because the fog was so thick. But it was nice because I got more time to nap! I slept for about an hour (because our flight was only like 45 minutes plus waiting time) and then we landed in Aguascalientes! It was SO COLD where we landed and it was literally the smallest airport I've ever been to. It had two gates...But we were greeted by the mission president, his wife, and the AP's. There were 8 hermanas (4 Americans, 4 Latinas) and 4 elders (3 Americans, 1 Latino). We boarded a bus like thing and drove 45 minutes to the mission home. Here we had a breakfast with all the trainers, new missionaries, and missionaries that were going home the next day. After that we had a few hours of welcome and instruction time. Then, we met our trainers! My trainer is Hermana Muñoz and she is the sweetest! She has been in the mission for 7 months and pretty much speaks no English so there has been a lot of pointing and flipping through the dictionary to try to understand each other..haha but it's going well. She's so sweet!

After that the mission president gave us blessings, we had a devotional, then left for our areas! Me, Hermana Caldwell, Elder Loertscher, and Elder Peterson (all from 4C..the best district ever..) were all assigned to areas in San Luis Potosí, so we were all together with our trainers on the 3 hour bus ride to our area! After being awake for just about 36 hours, that nap was GREATLY appreciated. It was a really good day but very emotional for me! Hna. Caldwell cried when I got a new companion, I cried when she got a new companion, I cried when I had to say goodbye to her and the other elders from my MTC district, and I cried when I got home that night...haha but I have mostly recovered from the emotional trauma now.

Our apartment is very very very small. It's all one open space that I really can't even describe so I'll send pictures next week. We live next door to a lady who apparently gets mad all the time..so that will be interesting. But all in all I'm excited to be here! My companion and I share a ward with the zone leaders, so we get to eat lunch with them and members every day (except the member forgot about us today..but my comp swears that never happens) so that will be way fun! My trainer is the sweetest and a great example of service. I have no doubt that this is where I'm supposed to be. I'm so happy to be a missionary and am excited to learn and grow more every day! I love you all lots and have felt strength from your prayers! Have a great Thanksgiving and eat lots of pie! 

Love,

Hermana Bird

November 19, 2015 Goodbye CCM

Hey everyone! 

I hope you are all having the best week! I don't have a ton of exciting news this week. It's mostly been more of the same. It's been kind of a sad week because we said goodbye to 4B, another district in our zone, and we're all preparing to leave on Monday, but we're having a blast and trying to make the best of it!

So I mentioned my district loves Nacho Libre...one night after class, Hermana Caldwell and I were tidying up and getting ready for bed when we heard a knock on the door and went to answer it. We opened to door to find four pieces of burnt toast with the following note from our elders. They're hilarious.

We had an incredible lesson with one of our teachers playing an investigator this week and it was so cool! We followed a prompting to ask her a question that answered a question she had for herself in real life. (That makes sense in my head but might not make sense on paper without context haha but I'm out of time.) 

The gospel is true and I am SO incredibly blessed to have it in my life. Being a missionary brings me indescribable joy and I can't wait to get into the field this week! Not sure when my next p-day will be, but I'll write soon! I feel lame that I don't have more, but that's about all for this week. I love you all and hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving! 

Love, 

Hermana Bird

us holding toast & note

toast and note

November 12, 2015 Tamales Por Los Niños

Hola! 

It's been another incredible week here at the CCM. So much learning and growing and laughing and teaching!

Subject line: Two weeks ago we moved classrooms (because they were going to start renovating the building our old one was in) and at first we were all pretty bummed because we loved that classroom and our new one is smaller and further away, BUT we have come to loooove the new classroom. It's right next to a big open field of grass, so now we study outside and for our language study each morning and night we get to play games and run around in the grass and it rocks. This new classroom is also right next to the border of the CCM and really close to a busy street. There isn't any AC in most of the buildings here so we always just open up the windows, and for about a week we would hear this street vendor day and night saying what we thought was "Tamales! Por los niños!" and we all wondered why the heck he was selling tamales just to kids, so one night we finally asked our teacher about it and she told us he was saying "Tamales! Calientitos!" (aka hot tamales). So we felt a little dumb..but now we always laugh when we hear him outside..which is often in the middle of district prayer..

Other funny things quickly since I'm running out of time:

-I asked Hna. Caldwell to braid my hair the other day, and my hair is super thick and fairly slick, which is way different than her hair, so she started braiding it and yells, "You're hair is slippery like a fish!" So now we always joke about my hair being fishy.

-Each week in the CCM, the branch presidency gives us three topics to choose from to write a talk on, and they just pick 3 or 4 people at the beginning of sacrament meeting to speak that day so this is actually old news, but on the second Sunday here, I spoke on charity and it was scary, but definitely a good experience!

-I have been studying and marking up my patriarchal blessing recently (like with "if, then" blessings and places where it says joy/love and things like that) and it is AWESOME. I encourage all of you who have your patriarchal blessings to read them, study them, and mark them up!

-My teacher told me earlier this week that I speak like a native, and a latina sister told me I didn't have a gringo accent so I'm feeling good about my Spanish this week! We'll see how good I feel about it once I get to the field though...haha.

-Our district has gotten really into playing assassin, so after meals we always try to shoot each other (it's mostly Hna. Caldwell and I with three of our elders) and it gets CRAZY. Because we made rules so you can only shoot someone and have it count if you sneak up on them or hide and shoot them, so the elders have been getting crazy and jumping out of bathroom windows and things to get us, and we've gotten our teachers to play with us and this is a really poor explanation, but it's just really fun.

-So one of my roommates sleep talks. It's pretty hilarious. A few times I've woken up from her talking this week and my favorite lines of hers have been "We'll teach better if we listen to the Spirit, I promise!" and her reciting Santiago 1:5. She's hilarious.

-My district is OBSESSED with ping pong. Like, obsessed. We play it every day after lunch, during all of gym time, and any other free moment we have (like last night when there were no new missionaries, so they told us we had an extra hour and a half for gym time). There are only 8 paddles and 10 people in our district, so we take turns playing Around the World and it's a blast. I will be a ping pong champion by the time I leave the CCM, guaranteed.

-We got two new investigators this week (missionaries in our district acting as an investigator using the life circumstances of someone they know) and it's been crazy to juggle 4 in a week, but apparently we should be looking at about 10 lessons a day in the field...we're getting there. But it's great and so cool to be able to have the Spirit guide us to know and address the needs of each different person.

-Last night we were doing a role play about an investigator who had committed to baptism but she was getting nervous about it. She didn't have any specific doubts, but didn't feel like she could say with a surety that the church was true. I was taught as the investigator by an elder in my district who shared Alma 5:45-46 with me. It was so powerful! The Holy Ghost witnesses of truth to us. Once we receive that witness, we need not second guess our answer. The Spirit is so essential in missionary work and is the best companion! I encourage you all to see what improvements you can make in your life to have the Spirit with you more constantly.

I love you all very much and am grateful for you! 

Love,

Hermana Bird

mi casa!

from earlier today when Hna. Caldwell & I tried to be artsy with our nametags

November 5, 2015 ¡Paz Afuera!

Subject line: this week my district has been struggling because for some reason the elders feel the need to say "peace out" when we go places, but none of our teachers or the natives know how to translate it, so we've resorted to saying "paz afuera" which literally translates to "peace outside" haha so if any of you know how to say peace out in Spanish...let me know.

Today we went to immigration (or migration? who knows) to get everything in order for our temporary resident cards here. It's always fun to go out into the city and experience the crazy driving and the people here. Also one of our elders got a package with a HUGE bag of Jelly Belly's so we played "guess the flavor" on the way there so of course it was a blast.

Each week we do a service project here at the CCM, and my zone is suuuuuuuper blessed and we get to host the new missionaries each week! So every Wednesday we welcome them here, direct them through a couple different orientation things, and get to take them to dinner and talk with them. This week we got a new district in our zone so we're super pumped to get to know them! It's always one of the highlights of my week to meet the new missionaries. Missionary work is the bomb!

Two of the elders in my district love to speak to each other in Double Dutch, one of the greatest languages in the world (after Spanish and Chinese Pig Latin of course), and it's HILARIOUS so you should all try it. All you have to do is put "ib" in front of the vowel sounds in a word. Their favorite words this week are nibo (no) and slibob (slob). It's difficult to learn but hilarious if you can do it.

Halloween isn't really a big deal here so nothing terribly excited happened, but all of the elders in our district wore orange ties and Hermana Caldwell and I dressed up as bumble bees! (so like I wore a yellow top with a black and white striped skirt). It was fun but we couldn't get a picture since we're only allowed to take pictures on our P-day here. 

Fun fact: daylight savings in Mexico was a week before it was in the states so I was really confused when all the new missionaries talked about getting an extra hour of sleep on their last Sunday home a few days ago haha.

Esta semana tenemos que hablar solamente en español y es muy difícil pero muy divertido. Mi compañera y yo siempre olvidamos, pero trataremos a ser mejor. Me encanta español y la oportunidad por aprender este idoma! Estoy muy agradecida por este evangelio y las bendiciones que recibimos. Yo sé que Jesucristo es nuestro Salvador y Redentor. Todos de nosotros somos hijos de un Padre Celestial que nos ama mas que podemos comprender. Yo sé que el Libro de Mormón es verdadero y podemos encontrar fortaleza (strength?) en leyendo y siguiendo las palabras que contiene. 

Speaking of which...read 3 Nephi 18! It's a super good chapter!

I don't have any pictures this week, but hopefully I will next week!

I love you all and hope you have the most wonderful week!!

Love,

Hermana Bird