I'm Becoming Mexican!

          August 17, 2015

Hello all!

Life here is very exciting. Here's a short list exciting things that have happened:

1.The other day an old lady sang authentic Mexican music to us on the street. It was pretty great. They are really good at singing their music. Hymns on the other hand.... I'm not sure what it is, but they just can't sing the hymns. Yesterday we didn't have anyone to play piano for the sacrament hymn and they actually started singing the tune to the chorus for the beginning of the verse. I've never tried to sing so loud in my life. Hna Lambert and I were trying to carry the ward.

2. I'm becoming a Mexican. They have lots of hand signals. If you hold up the back of your hand to people it means "thank you," which is very different because that is not exactly nice in the states! Also, if you hold up your pointer finger and bend it a few times it means "yes." So I'm picking up those things. Also, the people here LOVE jello. We get jello all the time from members. I mean, I think jello is okay but I've never been crazy about it. But the other day I ate this jello desert that I actually thought was pretty good! I turned to my comp and was like, "is this actually really good, or am I just becoming Mexican?"

3. As previously alluded to, singing might not be a huge strength of the mexican people in general. Actually, that's not totally true. They are good at singing Mexican music, just not other things. Anyway, I've been trying to teach my Mexican comp how to sing. We play "match pitch," but sometimes it can be a little rough. I'll joke with her and be like "how can you not sing that note?!" and she will joke back and be like "the same way you can't say (insert spanish word) correctly!" It's great fun. She's awesome. 

4. The other day our sketchy metal water heater broke but I really had to take a shower. So I just took a cold bucket shower. It was really stressful because the water was so cold I would gasp every time I poured it on my head but then I would freak out because I would get it in my mouth and be trying to spit it out. We think one of the other American hermanas that came with me has a parisite. I've been really lucky and still haven't been sick, but I try to be careful because it can definitely happen. 

5. We had a meeting with a lady the other day who always says hi to us. We just wanted to see if she was interested in investigating the church. Well, she didn't totally understand what we do and she ended us asking us to give her forgiveness and she wanted to pay us money to listen to her talk about her problems and confess her sins. That was interesting. We woudn't accept the money, so she insisted on buying us juice boxes. As if we didn't already stand out enough, there we were 20 something year olds in skirts with tags saying hi to everyone while sipping juice boxes.

6. I'm working on my accent. Hna Wong says it's getting better. A few weeks ago we were at a house with no doorbell ringer thing and so we had to yell to notify them that someone was at the door. So, I yelled "buenas tardes" and Hna Wong was like "wow, that was really good" and I was like "really? (:" and she was like "No, that was terrible!" However, my accent has come a long way and is much better now. We say hi to everyone, so I'm much better at saying "buenas tardes" now. I read the Book of Mormon out loud to practice. It's pretty cool to see how my Spanish is getting better though. The scriptures are harder to understand than any other reading materials I have in Spanish and I used to not really know what I was saying when I talked out loud. However, now, I usually know what I am reading about! So that's pretty cool. 

Okay, now for a spiritual experience.

Working at the temple is so cool! At first my favorite thing was working in the video room because it is more of a memorized script about how the people need to turn off their cell phones and not take pictures and blah blah blah... Which is easier for someone who doesn't know spanish. However, now I like the reception tent more! It's so cool to see people right after they come out of the temple. They are so calm and happy and kind and touched by the spirit. It's so special.

The other day an Hermana and I were talking with a woman in the reception tent. She was telling us that she had friends and family who were members of the church and that she had met with the misisonaries and always felt good, but wasn't super motivated to be baptized right now. It was something that she would do eventually, maybe. But then she told us that after walking through the temple she wanted to be baptized, like now! She was like "Give me 10 minutes, I'll be ready to go!" The other hna (an american) and I were looking at each other like "are we understanding each other right? Is this real?" Wow it was just so powerful! And we had the opportunity to bear our testimonies about temples. Really, temples are so amazing. What a gift it is to be able to be with our families forever. There's a quote by Elder Holland in the pre temple tour video about how heaven wouldn't be heaven to him without his family. How true that is! I love you guys. 

One last experience. This one is more about how real the gift of tongues is. I was talking to a guy who had a question and he was using words I did not know. I could tel he was trying to figure out the name of something but I couldn't really get a grasp on what he was describing. Then I had the word "ordenanza" come to my mind. But I was also thinking "I really have no idea what he said, I should call over someone who actually speaks Spanish" but I just decided to say "ordenanza" and he was like "yeah, that's it!!" That was pretty cool. The spirit is greatttttttt. 

Well, I love you all so much! Thanks for all your notes! I read them all!

Love, 

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts

The crazy hail storm we experienced this week!