Hey family! Sorry about the email last week, there was so much going on and so many people trying to talk to me and I was trying to write and it was just insane. So I´m sorry! I´ll try to do better!
So my trainer is Hermana Sanchez and she is amazing and fluent in english! That seriously has been the biggest blessing in my whole life at the moment. She´s from El Salvador and is so helpful.
So this week was really good, but to be 100% honest (and I told you before I left that my emails aren´t going to be the cheesy ´´oh everything is perfect, this is the best thing ever´ emails missionaries usually send. They´re going to be truthful) This is so hard. I knew the living conditions would be bad, I knew I´d be walking around all day long, I knew my knees would be swollen and hurt and I was ready for all of that. I was not ready for people pointing at my laughing at me all day long, I was not ready for how lonely it feels to only understand maybe 1/40 of what´s going on in a conversation, I wasn't ready for not being able to understand the hymns during church and not having Ang come up to me after and patting my back and saying ´hi hon´ or no hugs from Kim, or not sitting in between Cami and Brittany in the chapel in Cedar. It´s little things like that, that I had no idea would be so hard - but I also had no idea how happy I´d be walking around all day long attempting to talk to people.
So on Monday we had P-day and Presidente and Hermana Caffaro came and played with our zone and Hna. took the sisters to go get ice cream and after hna sanchez and I went grocery shopping and I found peanut butter! YAY!!!
Tuesday we went to go find two girls who we contacted in the street and they weren't home so we were standing outside of the door and this old lady is up on the mountain and says, you can come teach me. So we hiked up to her house and taught her. Her name is Antonia and she lives in a tiny hut and has a dirt floor and is really open to our message! It´s awesome. She has 7 dogs, a cat, and a bunch of chickens. During the closing prayer a chicken came up and pecked my foot....who would have thought that 6 chickens would just be chillin´ with us during a lesson? I thought it was pretty funny.
Wednesday was terrible. During language study I just felt so overwhelmed with the language and just started to bawl. Then later that night at an investigators house they were talking and I couldn't understand and I´ve gotten really good at understanding the phrase, ´she doesn´t understand does she?´ and one of the investigators said that and I felt the tears starting to come, so I asked to use the bathroom (that I do know how to say in spanish) and in this tiny, dirty bathroom, underneath the stairs I just sank onto my knees and started to sob uncontrollably for a good 5-10 minutes. Not one of my finest moments. I remember saying, ¨heavenly father¨ but I don´t think I got anything out past that. It was terrible. I´ve never felt so alone in my life. But then I read in Matthew 14: 29-32 and realized that I am Peter. We all are Peter and that the Lord has his hand constantly stretched out to us and that it is up to us to take a hold of it so He can pull us into the boat and the storm can stop. So after I finally stopped crying our investigator, David, started making jokes and had me laughing so it was all better and I finally realized who he reminds me of. He reminds me of a mix between Daddy, Shawn and Tony. I love it!
Thursday was awesome!! I saw a volcano explode!! (I've seen 2 more since) It was awesome! I
didn't have my camera though...so no pictures, sorry! But after I saw the volcano explode we were contacting and we contacted this family and the mom started making all sort of excuses about how they don´t have time and blah blah blah, and then she said, ´my son is in english classes and he has this big test and he needs to study´and then I said, I can help him study. I know english. And she asked how much I charge for tutoring and I told her that it would be free, just a service and she looked shocked and then agreed to have us come back and help him. So basically we´re going to baptize the whole family. It´s going to be awesome. But the coolest thing was Thursday night. There was not only one, but TWO EARTHQUAKES!!
Friday we went and contacted with a member, she´s in her 60´s and lives alone and has a friend who she thinks needs the gospel, so we went with her and shared our message and her friend started crying and said that her husband is sick and has all these problems and she knows that the gospel will bless her life so much. Amazing!
Saturday was good, I met Juan Lopez. We walked past him and he started talking in english and normally I ignore men who talk in english because they just want to get my attention and it´s just dumb. But for some reason I said hi back and then he started up a conversation and he´s from LA and he gave me all the updates of what´s going on with football and said we could come teach his family on monday´s before football is on.
Sunday was so much better! It was just a good day. At church we had an elder in our ward get home from his mission and then we went and ate lunch with his family and he was Kaden Newburger´s companion and so we talked about that and he said Kaden is doing awesome. Then that night we went to teach Sarleth and we got there and she was trying to make her house warmer. So me and my comp insulated her house using cardboard and a nail gun. Cardboard. My heart broke. Seriously, we have it so easy in the states. I feel so spoiled.
So that´s all that I can think of for this week! Hope all is well with you guys! I love you so much!! Have a great week!
Love, Hermana Tuddenham
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