One Month. Wahoo

Yesterday was my one month anniversary.  I considered having a celebration, but that´s about as far as the party went.  Oh wait, one latina sister had a birthday and we sang and had a bit of cake, so i can count that.  Hmm...this week..  I ate/drank the most disgusting thing of my life. they have these milk cartons, like gosner´s, and i attempted to drink it.  I got a mouth full of chunky sour nasty.
Enough  of that.  
Oh i went to a video conference at the area office building where the Area Medical Adivisor AMA/doctor was having meeting with all the mission nursing in central america.  I learned about warts (ps.  ductape has a 80% cure rate, for real), diarrhea, dog bites, toe nails, sore throughts, staff infections, insomnia, etc. Cant wait.  Kayla went with me to it.  And during the meeting on the 5th floor of the building, i experienced my first ever earthquake!  i wasnt large enough to do any damage, but plenty large enough to feel
it.      
Still can´t figure out how to press enter on this computer.....  andyway, sounds like shane has been sick as a dog with
E.coli.  I hope he{s doing better.     
 I was thinking the other day about the tree of life-vision and how as a missionary, it´s our job to encourage people and direct them to the iron rod.  I´m reminded of the why of the gospel, and the why of missionary service.  Imagine if i/we were telling others that they should hold on to the rod, but never explained to them why.  It´s important to remember for myself and for others the ´why´ behind what we do.  We need to remember the tree, the love of god, and they joy that comes with it.  As president uctdorf said, ´´the what informs,the why transforms.´´         
 Iove u mucho! thanks for the great emails.  
PS.  happy birthday to evie last week!  
PSS.  I went to the temple here this week!  it was really great.  So small, but the celestial room was still beautiful.  A couple parts were in spanish, but mainly english.  Which i was grateful for.  Same spirit, nomatter where you are in the world.  Love it. 
 PSS.  Thanks to Scott for his great thoughts, i´ve really enjoyed studying them in my personal study time.

Can I get a woot woot for p-day!

The first few days have been pretty good here.  They are more strict about some things...such as speaking spanish, but our schedule is a little more manageable. For the most part my district is a little more focused here.  My teacher likes to play games outside to help us stay awake and practice spanish.  When we mess up she hits us with a ball.  She thoroughly enjoys it.   It doesnt really feel like im in guatemala...being that we are confined to the parameters of the mtc property.  We were able to walk outside once to go to the casa CRE(teaching practice house) which is right across from the temple.   The latinos are very patient with us and our spanish.  i had to teach a latino last night, and he taughtme....that was entertaining.  The food here has been pretty great. the only problem is you have to eat everything on your plate, so if you dont like something, too bad.  you just chew and swallow anyway. i tried a fruit called liches- pretty yummy.  you should look up a picture of them.  They kind of look like a sea creature, but you open then up and eat the transparent stuff on the inside.             Last sunday i game my first talk in Espanol.   i also sang with 2 other girls, nearer my god to thee, in spanish, and gave the closing talk. Not sure why I got so lucky.....  They dont announce who´s speaking untill during sacrament meeting- so you always have to be prepared.       Not to much else to announce.  Let me know how you all are doing.  Love you!   Hermana Natalie Canfield            I cant figure out where the return/enter key is.....   Ps.  We get dear elders hear once a week.  They are sent from pouch mail from Salt lake City I believe.  If you send monday or sooner, i should receive them on thursday, from what i hear.      forgot shanes email....dont have time to look for it.  forward to shane pleaseii

Surprises at the Airport

Sending You Your things this weekend

im alive and well in guatemala!  im not sure yet how the punctuation
works on this key board, so bear with me!  This place is a dream.  my
new companion is hermana schumacher, whom i already know, love, and
admire. The flight was good, no problems.  it was great to talk to you
(mom, dad, shane), and thanks for the suprise nickole/kristen.  
They fed us pizza when we got here late last night, and said we could wake
up at 630, and didnt have to come down until breakfast at 8, following
which we could rest untill 10.  i hadnt heard that word for 3 weeks.
the food hear is fantastic.  There´s a really great chef.  Elderes y
Hermanas are not allowed to sit by eachother during meal times.  I
think that is part of the "lock your heart" campaign. 
Kayla is here!it has been so great to see and talk to her.  Still crazy that we are
in the same place, but i love it.  i think the spanish will pick up
here quite a bit.  my teacher is strict, which i like, as far as
speaking spanish, but the whole atmosphere is more homey and
comfortable. 
 the night before we left the alarms in an entire room of
girls(17) went off at 1am.  it was the night of the walking dead as
girls crawled out in pj´s robes, with no makeup, hair done.....or
anything else that girls usually do before making going in public.  of
course no  one has phones to contact anyone, but a maintenance guy and
police finally showed up.  apparently it was a fluke, and we were able
to go back to bed.  
im really excited to be immersed in the culture
and language.  Theres even a temple right next to the mtc.  I think
one of the points of the provo mtc is to make you excited to leave.  i
liked it and learned a lot, but was thrilled to move on.  The more
difficult it was, the more i knew i was learning.  There are so many
more lessons to be learned than the language, and the lesson plans.
keep me updated on on thats going on at home and dont worry about
making me homesick by telling me good things that are happening there.
i love to here it but am thoroughly enjoying myself.  i cant wait to
start learning again..  
love you all!}<
hermana canfield      

Semana Dos

I'm just gonna apologize now for the grammar/spelling.  No time to worry about stuff like that...sorry.  This week was alot like last one--study, eat, study, eat, study, sleep.  We saw the fireworks last night though!  We had a late night fireside and watched a cheesy slide show to music from the 80's.  But then they let us outside and stay out past 10:30....whoa, I know.  First time watching fireworks standing up, but it was about as party-like as it gets around here. 

Things are going swell with my companion.  Language is still really slow...we're working on the basics, el/la, plural, what verbs are, ect.  She'll get the hang of it...  I feel like I understand most that is being said, and can communicate my ideas ok.  That doesn't mean I'm saying things right--I slaughter past tense.  But they get the general idea. 

We went to a devotional by some emeritus 70, japanese man.  I think my favorite thing he said was when he talked about allowing the love of God to fill your heart by reading the book of mormon, and how you will have courage to open your mouth.  Say, "thank you, God bless you when door slam in your face.  When dog barking say 'hello, god bless you', and dog fill spirit and stop barking you."  I love asians.  He really did say some more great things about having your own sacred grove/ holy communion with the father every day.  

So i'm leaving for Guatemala next wed!  I bought a calling card.  I'll be calling before noon on wed (my flight is at 12:20), and maybe in dallas, if i have time from 4-5. 

Funny moment of the week:  my companion got a orange dreamsicle and after one lick, it was stuck to her tongue....for a good 5 min.  She turns about as red as a tomato whenever she gets embarassed.  She was drooling all over, and twisting her tounge in strange ways by pulling on the popsicle. She tried pouring water on it, but it was on real good.  Quite the show. 

Also...She almost died this morning when she found a snake in her bed....wonder how that got there hahaha, I know...i'm soo funny.  She said didn't think it was funny....while she was laughing so hard she could hardly breathe. She thought it was funny. 

I have a tendency to go off of faith.  'the church is true therefore....."  But i'm learning that I need to have testimonies of every prinicple/doctrine/teaching of the gospel if i plan to testify that it's true.  I believe it, but i need to know it--specifics. 

Starting to go a little crazy here....it's good and i'm learning alot, but getting a little claustraphobic i think/insane.  So is everyone else though....wich i think only makes matters worse. 

 

Love you all and love hearing from you! 

 

Love

 

Hermana Canfield.

Semana Uno. Check.

 As you know, there is a lot of positive energy here, which makes it easy to stay motivated and optomistic.  Not gonna lie, the day or so was a little overwhelming.  You honestly don´t have time to think about anything much besides, well the mission stuff, untill the 15 minutes you have of ´´quiet´´ time, before lights out.  They kind of throw you to the dogs, so to speak, with the language.  I heard they changed the teaching program recently, so it is now super language intensive.  Day 2...or maybe 3 (all the days run together, and I often can't even remember what happened in the last 24 hours) we gave our first lesson to an "investigator"....in spanish.  Thanks to Señor Murray´s 8th grade spanish class, I managed to put some of my thoughts into español.  The little Spanish I know has given me a good head start, but even though all we do is study, and eat, and study and eat some more, I feel as though I don´t have time to learn as quickly as I would like. 

 

My companion is Hermana Ericson, from Sandy.  It has been a really great learning experience for me.  We are about as different as they come, other than we can both talk a lot.  I was quickly humbled and learned that nothing in or about "my mission" is about me.  I have a tendency to care more about the investigator and the message we are giving them, rather than the quality of our teamwork as a companionship.  I wanted to be selfish with my study time and learn the language quickly, but without her knowing how to speak, there's no way we can do this together.  So our study time is readjusted to help her improve so we can be more balanced.

 

This was an interesting week, in that, there were over 100 new mission presidents here having a conference.  The whole MTC was able to watch The Other Side of Heaven on Firday night.  (music...dancing..kissing...yikes).  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  We had a firside on tuesday with 10 of the 12 apostles (all but Hales, and Packer, I believe).  L. Tom Perry gave a statistical presentation about the differences between Mormon's and the world (health, education, service, etc.)  It was very different than we expected, but we discussed it as a District and found ways to apply it to our missionary service. 

 

We listened to an amazing talk by David A. Bednar on Sunday, in which he talked about the character of Christ.  It was from an MTC Chirstmas fireside, last year.  He said that Christ's character can be explained in by the following:  He turns our when you and I, or the natural man, would tun in.  He said that a testimony is not enough, but we must be converted.  Conversion is being true to what you know, and adopting the character of christ.  Repentance is turning toward God, or in other words, turning outward--when we have the tendancy to turn inward.  It reminded me of the analogy of the Dead Sea, that had no outlets, compared to the sea of Galilea(sp?), that at an equality in the water coming in vs. out.  The things we learn and the love we feel from God and/or the spirit can not be horbored in our mind/hearts.  We have open our hearts, and mouths to others--keep the water flowing.  I'm not sure if that makes sense to you, but it does to me...   Anywho, we to become more like christ we can't wallow in our own sorrows, imperfections, offenses, or busy lifes, but we've gotta make everything about others.  It's not about you. 

 

I'm out of time... 

 

Love you All!!!

 

Hermana Canfield

 

PS.  Dear Elder is pretty great.  If you use it I get it the day (after dinner), rather than just on Pday--like with emails.  It's really easy to use.  My and sister Shumacher(who I love love love)  are feeling a little less loved cuz we haven't recieved any.  So i'm promoting it. 

 

We went to the Provo temple today.    Miss you and love you so much!  It´s almost feels like this is for real.   

 

Love,

Hermana Canfield.