¡Hermana Aubriana!: Families Are Forever... Mexico City Temple

Wow, what a cool week this has been!

Really every week here is amazing. And I don't just say that to be positive. It really is.

Today I had the opportunity to walk through the Mexico City temple!!! It is so beautiful!!! And the Spirit is so strong there, and it's not even dedicated yet! One of my favorite things is that there are many pictures of Christ appearing in the Americas, which has special meaning here. And being in one of the sealing rooms was amazing. Families can be together forever. I teach people that cada dia but I just felt in the temple how true that was. Really, it's such a HUGE blessing from Heavenly Father.

Spanish is.... well I don't really know. It's surprisingly hard to measure progress with learning a language. It almost feels like the more you know the more you realize you don't know a lot... but I am definitely understanding a lot more. It's always funny though because I'll feel like I understood pretty much everything and then my comp will mention something after the lesson and I'll be like "they said that?" Like yesterday we had an AMAZING lesson (with a family, who is interested!!! Families are the bomb because they understand temple blessings just a bit better than others) and my companion was like "that story about how the girl was kidnapped was crazy, huh?" And I'm just like "they said that?" There are so many words I don't know! The reason I miss things is because I don't know words like "kidnap" or things that don't come up very often. But they also aren't the most useful words to study so...

I can't believe how the time here has flown! Today is my 2 month mark. Sometimes I forget that my time as a missionary is counting down. I only have 16 months left ): I know, it's a lot but also, it's not. That realization makes me want work really hard every day.

Also, I got to see my American friends from the CCM. I really love those girls so much!! I'm excited to get to see them for the next 20ish days!

Everyday life here is exciting (: We wake up at 6:30 and try really hard to exercise. Usually exercise time consists of stretching and yoga. There was one Sunday morning where I was in bed stretching and another Hermana I live with was like "it's Sunday, we don't have to exercise." It was funny just because it's so sad. But wow, missionary work tires you out and makes you sore so stretching is my fav (:

After that we have an hour to get ready and eat breakfast. I don't think I've mentioned this to you all, actually, but due to the water situation at our apt, we shower with a bucket and cup. We stick this sketchy iron thing in a bucket full of water and plug it in and heat the water. And then we shower with that! It's really not bad. We just don't have a sufficient amount of water available for 4 people to have a real shower. But it's nice and it's warm! But another thing is that there is neither time nor water for daily showers. We usually aim for every 3 to 4 days. Haha... baby wipes and perfume are big parts of our lives. But seriously, our apartment is beautiful! I wish I had my camera so I could share pictures! It has windows and pretty orange floors and blue tile in the bathroom. I like it (:

At 8 we start our study time. We have an hour for personal study (which just flies by, I always want more) and an hour for comp study where we plan our lessons and stuff. After that we do 12 semanas, which is the training program for new missionaries. We just practice teaching and stuff. And after that we do language study. I read the Book of Mormon out loud and Hermana Wong corrects my pronunciation. And then I take some time to study vocab and grammar. It's great fun! And at noon we are finally out of the house. We eat a HUGE meal at around 2 or 3 pm, but besides that we have lessons (usually 7-10 a day. My comp and I want 13 because the record is 12 (: ) and we try to find a bunch of people. Things never really work out the way we plan, but we feel the Spirit guide us EVERY day. We walk a lot, so that's good because they feed us a ton! The people here love this thing called mole, which is like a chocolate sauce with spices. The chocolate is pretty subtle, but it's definitely different! I like it alright though. And corn tortillas! Wow they are produced in abundance and eaten with every meal here. There are tortillarias on every corner, literally. I like the food and I've been really lucky and haven't been sick!

At 9 or 9:30 we come home. First, we plan what we are going to do the next day and give our numbers to the district leaders, then we talk and write in our journals and relax and study and pray until it's time to go to bed at 10:30. Usually planning takes like 30 or 40 minutes so relaxing time isn't super abundant, but nights are nice. In the mornings I sometimes feel apprehensive because we have some great investigators and I don't want to ruin our lessons because I can't speak Spanish, but every night I just think about how everything went better than expected (: I've always felt like that. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, but I just feel Heavenly Father's hand in my life helping things to be better than I could have imagined. It's a great blessing!

This Church is true. God loves us and has a plan for all of us. Sometimes I wish I were just speaking English because I feel such a strong urge to share the gospel but sometimes I literally don't have the words. But then I think that God loves His children here too, and they need the gospel too, and then I feel a renewed desire to really learn the language.

Love you all!

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts

Also, one quirky thing about these computers - because I write in English, everything is underlined in red as being incorrect. So, I can't see when things are spelled wrong. So sorry.

The following photos are from Sister Stutznegger.