Week #1

Hola mi padres!

Ok first off I want to say sorry for not telling you in my last e-mail that my P-day was on thursday...they didnt tell me until after I had just closed out of my e-mail account. And another thing is that if any of the spelling is weird or capitalization is off it is because Spanish is messing with my mind and I am typing on a spanish keyboard which essentially the same except the shift and caps buttons are smaller and in different places.

Alrighty all the important details!

Me and my companion Hermana Howton taught our first investigator last Thursday! It has been fantastic teaching her but we do have some REALLY funny stories:

WRONG SCRIPTURE: at our first lesson we asked her to read a short list of scriptures about repentance, faith, and baptism. on the list was D&C 3:11-12. at our next lesson she asked about this scripture and we opened it up and read it.. both me an sister howton we completely lost we didnt recognize any of the words so we said what we knew the scriptures we had assigned had been about.... once we got home we looked it up in English and realized that we were supposed to read D&C 33:11-12. We felt so silly because the scripture we had read with her was the scripture about Joseph Smith losing his translating gift for a while...  needless to say we apologized profusly at our next lesson.

PRAYER: at our next lesson sister howton wanted to ask if we could close with prayer... but couldnt remember the word for close (and I had NO clue) so she ended up saying,  can we not open with prayer? teehee our investigator laughed quite a bit at that one.

MY COMPANION: Sister Howton is SO amazing! I couldnt have asked for a better companion in the entire CCM. She is so focused and fun to be with. We can talk to each other so easily and laugh together all the time. She is truly a blessing the Lord! Also she is super athletic so we have been doing a ton of ab workouts and squats and running...I have been so sore but it feels so good! She and I also have set some really awesome goals as a companionship, one of them being to read the entire Libro de Mormon before we leave the MTC! how cool is that! That is about 20 pages a day, and we are totally doing it! And reading has REALLY gotten easier for me... I actually sound kinda cool now! :)

District 4C At Mexico City Temple

SINGING IN DEVOTIONAL: Our branch was asked to sing at Tuesdays devotional so Hermana Howton and I joined in! We sang I need thee every hour in Spanish, and it was absolutely beautiful! Also it was hermana howtons first time singing in a choir and she did an absolutely fabulous job!

MY DISTRICT: is 4C and it is a pretty awesome group of elders. There are 4 companionships of Elders and us (the sisters) one thing though, our classroom is made out of tile and echoes like NONE other... so they start to talk a little bit loud and you cant hear yourself think. Also our district came up with nicknames for everyone and mine is Iva la Vida! I think it has a really nice ring to it dont you?!?

YOUR LITTLE NOTES: Thank you SO much! Hermana Howton quite enjoyed her foot roll up! teehee! You are so sweet mom thank you they make me smile everytime i find one!

FAST SUNDAY: was absolutely terrifying and awesome. everyone in our branch HAD to get up a bear a 45 second long testimony in Spanish...I did it and honestly I think I did really well! Also I had forgoten how much I absolutely love RS, I have really missed it! Oh and we got to break our fast with Mac n cheese...on spagetti noodles...it was really kinda weird

IM SINGING IN THE RAIN: Ummm....did you know it rains here??? like torrential downpours?!? It has seriously rained every afternoon and night I have been here! it is super crazy you can be out side for less than a minute and still be able to wring a cup of water out of the bottom of your skirt! It is crazy and there is always super loud thunder and really bright lightning to go along with it. And all the sidewalks are really just not even so there ends up being lakes in the middle of the sidewalk . One elder yesterday (either sprained or fractured) his ankle trying to jump over one of these puddles in the sidewalk!

MEXICO CITY TEMPLE! it is seriously the prettiest temple I have been in yet! They have a huge mural along the first wall you come to of when Christ comes to the Americas! Anyways we listened to the entire session in Spanish AND everything at the veil in SPANISH too! That was probably the most dificult thing I have done yet! But it was so cool! And the chandelier in the Celestial room! Oh how I wish I could have taken a picture! It was like stars of diferent sizes stacked on top of eachother!

Mexico City Temple

Driving in Mexico reminds me so much of Beijing China! All of the taxis and street vendors!

I absolutely love how bright every building is! and the graffitti looks SUPER cool! I am most definitely coming back after my mission just to sight see!

ADDRESS: just incase you were wondering the address here is :

Hermana Ives, Arkansa Little Rock Mission

Carr. Tenayuca - Chalmita No. 828

Col. Zona Escolar, Deleg. G.A. Madero,

C.P. 07330, Mexico, D.F.; Mexico

And now FOOD: I am actually kind of dissappointed they have cold cereal, pancakes, waffles, and usually some form of eggs or quesadilla for breakfast with an assortment of pan.

For lunch they always have beans and rice, a bunch of fruit, and some main dish of soup(which has always been my favorite) or a helping of various meats...

Dinner always changes but usually again there is meat... however for the last couple of days they have always had a green salad, fruit, cooked vegetables, and pasta.

A lot of people say the food isnt very good. You know I am NOT a picky eater so I think it is pretty good but i was really hoping for more authentic Mexican food :/ oh well.

With all my love!

Hermana Ives (which i now very automatically pronounce the Spanish way!