Final Week in the CCM!

Hope you all had such a great week! I can't believe we head out to Arequipa in just a few days, YAY! The CCM is great and all, but I'm so ready to just get out into the field. Highlight of this week was proselyting on Saturday. It was such a cool experience. We split up and half the Avenzados went with the Lima East missionaries and our half went with the Lima South. I was paired up with the cutest missionary from Ecuador who has 3 months left on her mission. She spoke practically no english, but that was great practice for me. We weren't teaching any lessons, we were just contacting in the streets. I could not believe how many people were so willing to listen to us and hear our message. These people had practically nothing and were living in the smallest of shacks, but they were still so friendly and kind. We handed out so many pass along cards and got about 11 new contacts. Gosh they speak Spanish so fast and I couldn't say much, but I was able to testify here and there. My companion was so loving and encouraging. It got me so stoked for Arequipa! I can't wait to teach real investigators and make it to Arequipa THIS WEEK! Let's hope these next few days fly:) Talk to you soon!

Mosiah 2:41

Hermana Wood

One month already?

I hope you all had such an amazing week! It was a great week here. A great learning week for sure! Thank you for all the emails and support & love. It means more than you know!  Love you all!

Okay, all of the new missionaries here are so nice! I have loved getting to know them. The schedule ran pretty much the same this week. (sorry I wish I had more exciting stories to tell). They postponed our proselyting activity to this coming Saturday, so we are going to proselyte this week instead! The Spanish is coming along! I think what has helped the most is that my companion and I have literally thrown English out the window and we are just trying to speak in Spanish 24/7. I am starting to think in Spanish now and I'm learning so much everyday. Who would've thought that in just 4 weeks I could say prayers, a dozen memorized scriptures, hundreds of new words and phrases and teach lessons in Spanish.. The gift of tongues is so real! I still have so so so much to learn haha but wow it's amazing how much more I can learn with the spirit. My goal this week was to find joy in all of the little things. For example, the grounds of the CCM are beautiful & call us cheesy, but just about every time my companion and I walk outside, we will be like "Hermana, we are in PERU!" & we keep reminding ourselves how cool it is that we have this amazing opportunity to be in such a great place serving the Lord. There's no place I'd rather be!

A few highlights of the week: On Sunday, my companion and 2 other Hermanas & I did the musical number in sacrament meeting. We were able to get an arrangement of Savior, Redeemer of My Soul & I played the piano and they sang. It turned out super pretty! There is a man named Carlos who works in the office here and he is so nice. He took my camera out to the city to get it looked at and they can fix it for me, Yay! During Physical Activity each day, I run & walk with Hermana Higginson and Hermana Stout, they have grown to be such good friends of mine. Luckily Hermana Stout is coming to Arequipa with me (crossing my fingers we can be companions in the future) & sadly Hermana Higgingson is going to Trujillo :( I will miss her so much! Yesterday for Valentines Day, my comp & I made Valentines for all the hermanas and decked out our whole hall in pink. It looked like cupid had shot his arrow straight here to the CCM haha. It was so fun. Oh and the temple is easily a highlight of every week. I loveee the Lima temple.

I think my favorite times of the week here are Sunday & Tuesday nights. On these nights we get to watch a devotional from a general authority. We watched the best devotional this past week that has really stuck with me. It was a talk by Elder Bednar on the character of Christ. The main message of the talk was to focus on others. Christ turned OUT when the natural man would turn IN. I know that this mission is not about me. I have really felt myself being humbled this past week because I know I need the Lord's help so so much. I am coming to know him better each and every day here. I am so grateful to be a missionary. It's such an honor to represent my Savior! I hope you all go out and serve someone this week:) Make it a great one!

xo

Hermana Wood

Mosiah 3:19

Avensados and Avacados

Whoa this week flew. And we are officially the "old" avenzado missionaries here now! Missionaries only come and leave this MTC every 3 weeks, so lots are leaving tonight and coming tomorrow. Today we are preparing for them to come and that's why I'm writing a day earlier this week! Don't have much time to write, so I will keep this short, but a few things: My companion and I were made the sister leaders of the new hermanas coming in! I am so excited to meet all of them and rumor has it, there are a few of the natives coming who are going to arequipa with us:) There were a couple earthquakes this week which were fun. haha They were just little. One of them happened while we were in class and I was staring at our little classrom TV just imagining it falling and Jaren running to save it like our Hawaii earthquake haha. The peruvian food is good, but my stomach is thinking otherwise.. haha I am forgetting what it feels like to have a settled stomach! Oh random highlight from the week: A couple days ago they had avocados for dinner with our salads and mmmm I forgot how good avocados are. It made me so happy! Oh the saddest thing happened last night. My camera fell and is having troubles working. So sorry if these next couple weeks not as many pictures are sent! I am going to borrow my companion's camera for now with my memory card, and hopefully I can get mine figured out. This week on Saturday we are going out into the city to prostelyte! I am so excited! Also, we found out last night that they will be breaking grounds for the Arequipa temple next month, YAY! Did any of you see that? So stoked. Well all is well here, still studying spanish like crazy and I loveee my savior:) Talk to you all soon!

2 Nephi 31:20

Hermana Wood

Semana 2

Week 2 is in the books! Its been such a great week. I hope you all had an amazing week as well! Is the weather freezing in Utah? It is so warm here! It's in the 80s everyday and super humid. I keep forgetting that it's winter over there! This week was super similar to last week. The days seem to run like this: 6:30-wake up. get ready. personal study. breakfast. language study. companion study. teach investigator. more language study. lunch. more language studying. physical activity. some type of "gift of tongues" class. dinner. practice teaching or Book of Mormon personal study. teach investigator. district planning. personal quiet/studying time. 10:30- lights out. sleep. repeat. so lots of classes everyday, but I am learning so much!

I love Sundays here. Sundays are all in english which is nice because they want us to feel the spirit in our native tongue. I have to share a story from sacrament meeting this past Sunday. When we got here to the CCM, we were given a paper with a topic for each Sunday we are here. Each missionary has to prepare a talk each week on each of the topics. After the ordinance of the sacrament, the branch presidency asks (without notice) 4 missionaries to speak. It has to be 5 minutes and completely in spanish. (this is the only spanish we hear on Sundays) If you are in your first 3 weeks here at the CCM you are considered a precipiante (beginner), if you are in your last 3 weeks here, you are considered an avensado (advanced). We were told when we got here that the first 2 Sundays, only the avensados are asked to speak in sacrament, but to still prepare a talk just in case. The topic for this past Sunday was repentance & guess who got called on to talk? Hermana Wood. Just my luck! haha So there I was speaking along with 3 other avensados and everyone was shocked I got picked. I had some thoughts written down, but didn't prepare a whole talk because I was just not expecting to be called out at all. I was so nervous, but WOW the gift of tongues is REAL. I gave a full 5 minute talk completely in spanish and it flowed perfectly. I hardly even had to glance down at my notes. I really couldn't believe it! President was talking to me after & asked how I already knew so much spanish. haha I told him it wasn't me, it was the spirit! He said he never asks precipiantes to speak in their second week here, but for some reason he just really felt inspired to ask me to speak. So yeah, that was the crazy miracle that happened this week.

I LOVE spanish! It's crazy how much you can learn with the spirit. This week we got another investigator, so we teach one investigator in the morning and one at night. It is such great practice for us. My companion is great! We are pretty different, but we are getting along really well and she's a super hard worker. Something that me and her have been doing everyday is an "english fast" so every morning we will fast from english until lunch. AKA we can only speak spanish till lunch. It is helping a lot.

Yesterday morning the food caught up to me and I woke up with a sick stomach. I had to see the doctor here and he wouldn't let me go to classes, he said I had to sleep. But another tender mercy, because by the afternoon I was feeling so much better and today I feel totally fine! Thank you all so much for the prayer and love and support. I really can feel them everyday. I can really feel the Lord breaking me down and building me up into the missionary that he wants me to be. My testimony has already grown so much in the short 2 weeks that I've been here! I love the CCM! Love you all more than words can describe. Until next week!

Alma 7:23

xo
Hermana Wood