29 April 2013

Thanks for all the emails! I love hearing from you! There is no typical for MTC meals. Some meals are local food (or in some cases Mexican). A few days ago, we had empanadas and some other things I don't know names for. Other days, we have standard, American food. Last night was lasagna. Yum! There's also a fruit bar, and sometimes a salad, but most of the fruits are things you'd see in the US. They do have mango, banana, and papaya, which seem more local than strawberry and blackberry. The biggest feature of the meals is their sheer size. Nothing is more sleep-inducing than eating a large lunch or dinner and then sitting, especially if we then sit in front of a computer. Most days we go to the computer lab to use a computer-based language learning system.

Other things: Once or twice a week we have a devotional. Most of the time we watch an old devotional that was given at the Provo MTC. On Tuesday, however, Elder Martino, who is the president of the area presidency came and spoke to us. I loved having someone here in person! It makes it easier to stay awake! He gave most of his talk in English, since there were more Nortes than Latinos, and the Latinos wore headsets to hear a translation. But my favorite was when he switched to Spanish. I think he saved his best stories for the Spanish. Last night we watched a devotional Elder Holland gave in January. At the end he dedicated three new building on the MTC campus. Part of it really caught my attention, he said that in these days of terrorism, he blessed the entire MTC specifically and emphatically that there would be no act of violence there. Somehow, I think when an Apostle says something like that it carries some force.

Tomorrow, we leave the MTC for the morning. This week we're going to the market. I'm not going to buy much, I think in the long run I'll care more about stuff from Honduras. (And I need to pack and fly still), But I'm really excited to get out and see Guatemala!

I leave Tuesday morning (two weeks from now). I don't have my itinerary or anything, but it'll will probably be very early in the morning. So I get to start out in Honduras completely exhausted. Hooray!

Hermana Davis

Guatemala MTC Elders 17 April 2013

 Guatemala MTC Hermanas 17 April 2013

23 April 2013

More changes

So things have changed once again! Hence I'm writing on Tuesday. I'm super grateful though that I had mail waiting for me! As of a week or so ago, the church enacted a new policy. Instead of handling email rules on a mission by mission basis, all missionaries, everywhere can now use email to communicate with anyone. With the new change, missionaries are also supposed to have more computer time. Thus, for the rest of my time in the CCM, I get an hour a week. Also, this means that you can share my email address as seems prudent. Because of the logistics involved in doubling computer time, I really could write any day of the week. Nothing here is predictable, so I have no reason to think email time will be. Probably just try to email by Sunday night most weeks and don't worry about exactly when you hear from me.

In other news, I think someone wanted to know how many people are in the CCM. The week I came in I think there were 172 missionaries, 1 more missionary than the largest they'd had before. I think we're a little smaller now. Also, we have few Latinos. They are bringing in more and more Nortes, and once the new MTC in Mexico is running, I hear there will only be Nortes in Guatemala.

Last p-day, we spent a little time at a stake center. Some of the Elders played basketball, and the rest of us played a giant game of never have I ever--the version where you run between chairs if you have done what the person in the center hasn't. Then we went to Walmart. I just grabbed some envelopes and a small notebook for friends to sign as we leave the CCM. Funny story about envelopes. I totally forgot to pack even a couple in the craziness of the last few hours. When I got here, I found out that when I send through the pouch from Guatemala, I have to use an envelope. That really surprised me because you don't use envelopes the other direction. Because I had only a half hour of computer time, I thought I might also write home with paper mail, and maybe send letters to a couple friends. So I bought envelopes. Then they changed the rules, so I don't need envelopes nearly so much. I can't win. But it's all good. We used some of the envelopes when the we (the girls in my district) wrote some notes.

After Walmart, we went to the food court at the mall for lunch. I went for Pizza Hut. The mall was huge!

As for washing, we have normal washers and dryers. I'm enjoying a few more weeks of being spoiled. Washing is a little risky because you can get color on your clothes from the batch before. I've been careful and lucky so far and haven't had any problems. Daniel, I'm so excited that you're a deacon now. You'll be great passing the sacrament.

Yesterday, the hallway flooded twice. Water was gurgling up from the sink in the mop closet. The second time we found out that the problem came from the washers upstairs, so no one in the building is washing clothes until the problem gets fixed, hopefully today. But we had a great time mopping up the floor with the six of us girls in the district.

Hermana Davis

15 April 2013

Guatemala MTC Elders

Guatemala MTC Hermanas

Hola!

So I guess my p-day is Wednesday every other week. Every two weeks all the Latinos and some of the Nortes leave Tuesday morning. On that Tuesday, everyone who is left has p-day, and we often do something outside the CCM. Because we're going to be gone much of tomorrow, we're doing email tonight. So I'm emailing you again before you had a chance to email me. I wish I would have known to tell you. Oh also, by way of warning, it's not a guarantee that I get to call home on Mothers' Day since I'll still be in the CCM. Even the teachers aren't sure whether we'll be able to call home.

I don't even know what to write since I didn't have any advance warning we were emailing tonight (until a few minutes ago, I thought it would be tomorrow).

Oh yes. On Sundays, everyone prepares a lesson and a talk. Sunday school is in English, and all the companionships have to prep a 10-minute lesson on an assigned topic. Then a couple companionships are put on the spot to actually teach. Well, my comp and I were chosen to teach. It wasn't a big deal because there were less than 30 people there and we set up the lesson to make the people in the class do the work. Likewise for Sacrament Meeting, everyone prepares a 5-minute talk. Then the branch president or whoever is conducting stands up and announces who will speak. I made it safely through the first round, but during the intermediate musical number, I saw two members of the branch presidency looking at me, so I kind of knew I was a marked target. Sure enough I was the first speaker after the music. Fortunately I had actually prepared well. I'll still prep the talks for the remaining weeks because it will be good practice, but the odds are slim that I'll have to speak again. I got all of it out of the way on my first Sunday. (Last Sunday doesn't really count because it was General Conference.)

My foot is still behaving okay. Today, I did my first day of walking 40 minutes. Did you know that lapping the basketball court gets really boring sometimes? Sometimes there are other people walking and I make friends. The other times I go through the things I'm memorizing over and over again, so it's good practice. Sometimes I worry about what will happen with my foot when I have to walk all over Honduras, so if you want to keep the foot in your prayers every now and again, I'd appreciate it.

I'm learning to survive in this meat-intensive environment. For breakfast, I skip the hot food line. I go for the fruit bar, and most mornings there is a vat of arroz con leche or something similar. Then most days I ask for "no carne" at either lunch or dinner.

Well, I'm running out of things to say. Next week I'll plan ahead what to write so that I can make better use of my writing time.

Hermana Davis

First Letters

10 April 2013

First of all you should know that I'm using a crazy keyboard with no hard returns and other quirks. That coupled with only 30 minutes of internet will make for interesting reading I'm sure. My flight out went okay. There weren't any missionaries on my flight from Philly. At LAX I switched airlines. Because of how the airport works there, I had to leave security and take a shuttle to another terminal. Then I had to go through security again. It was hard figuring out how to do it. I had to ask several people for directions. But I made it. From LAX to Guatemala there were oodles of missionaries. All of the Nortes. In the MTC we have two groups of people, Nortes and Latinos. The Latinos come and go every two weeks and the Nortes are here for the six. Also, you should know that if you send a letter or anything it should say Hermana Emily Davis. Apparently Hermana or Elder makes stuff go through customs better because they recognize it's to a Mormon missionary. But for my time here in the MTC just send stuff Dear Elder, and please send stuff Dear Elder, if only so that I can have hard copies of your emails to read outside of my allotted 30 minutes. There are 12 of us in our district, 6 elders and 6 Hermanas. All of them except three of us Hermanas are going to El Salvador. The other three of us are all going to Honduras together. There are three other Hermanas going to my mission in another district. I don't know of any Elders and the Latinos and Latinas won't arrive for a few more weeks. My Spanish is coming back. During the general meetings, they give the new Nortes headsets so they can hear a translation in English. I dispensed with the headset after about 5 minutes because I could get almost everything. Unless you're fluent enough to go with the Latinos, all the Nortes get lumped together. That means there isn't an intermediate language track, at least not to my knowledge. For now I'm bored out of my mind during language instruction, but the gospel instruction is good. Now that we've got some language basics started, we're starting to do more with Preach My Gospel, so I'm liking class better each day. Guess what? We're teaching a real investigator. I wasn't expecting that, so that adds more pressure than teaching a return missionary who is posing as an investigator, because we really don't want to mess up. Our investigator is super receptive, however, (I'm sure he was hand-picked) so teaching is going okay. We do a mix of English and Spanish. I'd want to go entirely Spanish, but my companion doesn't understand what's going on when I do, so for now we're mixing in some English. (Our investigator speaks English quite well.) I love you all sooooooo much. My foot has been doing pretty well. For the first few days, the walking program went by the wayside, but I'm back on it again, now that I have things figured out a little better here. I think, however, that I won't be able to squeeze in more than 45 minutes during gym time, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I got to watch conference, in English. I know that conference in Spanish would have been good language practice, but I loved that I could hear the real voices. (They put the Nortes in a separate room to watch the broadcast in English.) Well, I'm just about out of time.

Hermana Davis

5 April 2013

Hi Family! I made it to Guatemala albeit exhausted! But a couple of nights of sleep later, things are going well. I have never eaten so much meat. Probably ever. I´ve taken to skipping the hot food line for breakfast and just go for the fruit because I cannot eat meat first thing in the morning. Spanish is going well enough, but I haven´t figured out the teaching bit. We taught our first lesson last night to a REAL investigator. I thought we would teach members posing as investigators, but no. So we´re trying to not do anything really stupid. My P-day is Wednesday, and that´ll be the only time I can write or email. My contacts list in here isn´t really working. Please forward this to the rest of the family. I have to go now. I love you all so much.

Hermana Davis