I promise I'm not counting days. But we got to go to the visitor's center at the temple this morning (The temple is closed) and I had a lot of time to think and I was thinking about everything I've learned this week and I thought it would fun to theme each week with a principle I learned a lot about.
Well... I guess to start of norovirus has come to the CCM (Spanish version of the MTC). I was one of the first ones lucky enough to be visited by what the missionaries are calling el dragón double. I woke up at about 3am Sunday morning and I thought it was just really hot because the Hermanas in my room like to sleep with the windows closed on the weekends so they can't hear the music coming from the clubs outside the CCM. I got up and opened then window and then spent the next hour and half rotating between being sick in the bathroom and crying on the floor. I tried to take a few different medications but nothing stayed down long enough to work. Around 430 I woke up my companion and told her we need to call and see if I could get a blessing. The guy and the desk didn't speak much English (and I was probably rather hard to understand because I was still crying) so he ended up having the doctor call me. The doctor said he'd be by to see me in the morning. My cute companion told me she would sleep out on the couch with me because it was the only place I felt comfortable enough to sleep. When Hermana Gill (the nurse, who is also the doctor's wife) she told me there were 4 other missionaries who were sick. She brought me some kind of magical nausea pill and tylenol and was able to rest a little better after that. My district leader and his companion came over with the doctor a little bit after that to give me a blessing. It was a very nice blessing. I was basically out of commission all of Sunday. I made it the last devotional of the day but almost passed out on the walk back to our casa. By Monday morning I was at like 80% and able to go to everything. I was just weak. But I'm slowly getting back to normal. By mondaymorning there were 40 sick missionaries and Tuesday morning there were almost 100. But I talk to Hermana and Presidente Gill today and they said they haven't had any new cases in 12 hours which is awesome.
Well that was the big news of the week. But I guess I'll do the rest in chronological order.
The plane ride to México city was not too bad. I sat next to Elder Hill (who is from Lehi) and Elder Pendrod (who is from Nephi. I could not make that up.) They had both never flown before so it was fun to experience flying with someone for the first time.
When we got through Immigration and showed our immigration cards to the guy from the MTC there were about 5 of us who had ours marked wrong so we go to take the monorail up to the immigration office to get everything sorted out. Whoops. But it all worked out.
Once we got to the CCM my first stop was to chat with the medical guy to make sure all my immunizations were done and he looked at my name and told me "We heard you were coming" to which I thought "Well I hope you were planning on most of us." But then he said "You're the nurse, right?" and I realized he meant I had to do something different. Haha. So he then told me that he was my Branch President (Presidente Gill) and that they wanted to see if I would be ok if that got permission to have me trained as a mission nurse specialist. I told him that was fine. He got permission from the Area Medical Authority, but last I heard he was still waiting to hear back from Salt Lake. But he says it should all be approved and I can start my training in a few weeks. He also said that because my mission president wasn't planning on me it will probably be easy for me to talk him into letting me have of a few months of light nurse-duty, heavy-proselyting until I get adjusted to everything. So that's exciting!
Then we got to go through a TON of orientation. I met my companion. Her name is Hermana Labrum. She's from Smithfield, UT. She's 19 and she's awesome. She has been so patient with me as I've been sick and we have had an awesome bond from the first second. She's going Aguascalientes as well so we actually got a picture together in the airport before we even knew we were going to be companions. I absolutely adore her.
We went back to our casa. The casa sleep four to a room, there are 5 rooms and each room shares a bathroom. Then there is a livingroom and kitchen, that are basically where we put our suitcases because we're not allowed to study in our casas. And there's a laundry room that we can only use on p-days. They are very nice.
The next day I met are district and at first we didn't all get along very well and I was VERY worried when they called our district leader (barely graduated, rich kid from Logan. He just seemed REAL stuck up and entitled) But that was my first lesson in humility because we all get along great and he's doing a pretty good job. He good do a better job of making sure everyone stays on task but he's young and he's learning.
Our Spanish teacher is named Hermano Sanchez (I called him Hermano Hernandez for two days and was pretty embarrassed when I realized it was not his name.) He is awesome. He taught himself English by watching movies and it is about 1 million times better than my spanish so I am very impressed.
On Friday we taught our first lesson with our "investigator" (we heard that he will be our teacher next week) Ricardo. It had to be all in Spanish and mi compañera and I straight read to him. It was not very good but it also could have been worse. And we had to go a little off script when he told us he didn't know how to pray but it worked out. In our third lesson with him on Monday we tried just using bullet points and that went... Well we didn't say as much but at least we got to look at his face for part of the lesson. Haha. It's so frustrating to know exactly what you want to say and just not have the spanish words to say it. Every workshop we've had about teaching they say "teach by the Spirit" and I'm sitting in my lessons like "As soon as the Spirit starts speaking to me in Spanish, I will be HAPPY to." Haha.
I guess I shouldn't be too frustrated with my Spanish. I, more or less, can get through a lesson (with a few hours preparation) and I can get through a basic meet and greet. I can also give simple prayers and bear a brief testimony. That's pretty incredible for one week! Hermano Sanchez had us get to know two of the latina missionaries and they asked how long we'd been in the MTC they were very impressed with our Spanish. Haha. And we had to do a service project and the lady we were working with only spoke Spanish. She also said it was a very impressive conversation after 6 days. So I guess something must be going right.
I'm all out of time but I love you guys and I'll write you next week.
Much love!
Hermana Schmidt
