"the Flu Plague" has hit!

My ankle is doing a lot better, my ace bandage is OFF! Yay! And now I just get it taped before playing, which I've been biking and playing basketball soon and later today I'll start up volleyball again yay! It's still a little swollen but it's not bruised anymore or as giant! Yay! :) Missionary blessings!

Having an iPad is super cool too! We get to FaceTime our "investigators" and it's pretty funl! 

Our district has "the plague" and yesterday only 5 of us were in class! The flu is spreading, but luckily I've been in my little bubble of an amazing immune system (hope to keep it that way.)

We move up to Main Campus on Wednesday, which will be my new PDAY, and it's crazy because West Campus is amazing!  They're rebuilding a bunch of places at Main to add more green parks and stuff just like here at West and it'll be amazing! We also get to take a photo walking out all cool like of the West Campus Cafe, and then they'll be a photo of the first missionaries walking in with a photo of the last missionaries walking out and that's me! We're part of history! Awesome :) 

Anyway, lots has happened this week and I'm learning a lot, espescially how to put trust in the Lord and strengthen your faith in Him! I'm gaining an even greater testimony of how the Lord has a plan for EACH of us and He loves and watches over us every moment of every day! 

I love hearing from you guys! 

Love from,

Hermana Day

P.S-We had a devotional with 2 NFL players who are LDS  this last week, Chad Lewis, and then some guy with a crazy last name that started with a K.  Chad Lewis totally knocked the Patriots and how they lost and my district cracked up because I had just worn my Patriot t-shirt that morning for gym haha :)  

Bargaining Ice Breaker Duos for Mt Dew Code Red-- oh yeah!

Oh, qué una semana! It´s flown by, even though the days can go by really slow! But it´s also been sooooo amazing! The MTC is absolutely amazing!! I love it here, and I can´t believe that I am halfway done here! I´m learning a LOT and it sure is preparing me for the field! Which I´m getting more excited for each day, especially because I can totally check the weather on my missionary portal and it´s ´´getting colder,´´ as in 85s haha, oh goodness! It will be super exciting because half my distrito is going to SanFern too and it´ll be nice to see them throughout my mission and have that touch of " MTC home"! 

This week, on Miércoles (Wednesday) we spoke in Spanish for a whole, constant 24 HOURS! Viviendo la vida loca! It was awesome!! I learned a bunch of new words and learned how much I really do know, so that was super cool! Now we´re all HSI (habla en su idioma aka speak your language, SLY) a lot more often and it´s really cool because sometimes I don´t even notice that I´m speaking Spanish or thinking in Spanish or listening to Spanish because it just comes! How awesome is that! I´m able to listen to my maestros and investigators and I don´t have to ´translate 'into English for my thoughts/mind to understand, I just hear Spanish and know what it means! It's super cool! Speaking is a little more difficult, but this week I've learned that as long as I've used my study and prep time effectively and have focused on studying vocab and practicing, then it's all up to the Holy Ghost and the Lord, because I've prepared and am ready for the lesson, the Spirit will give me the words to say and what to say and the language to say it in! It's actually super awesome, because sometimes I don't really know (grammar and structure and tense wise) exactly what I'm saying in Spanish, but it makes sense! It's pretty cool! I've also been learning how to just go with what the Spirit tells me to teach and not just sticking to the lesson plan, and it's been so amazing! We've been asking more questions and listening more intently to our investigators, and then we teach them the doctrine they need to know while "molding" it into emphasis with the things important to them! It's super cool and has really been helping our lessons! :)

Okay,fun stuff:

Chistoso histoarias de esta semana: 

 On our ride back to West Campus on Sunday night, some Hermanas and Elders across from me asked what happened to my ankle and I started to stay I was playing volleyball and I--" and then they busted up laughing and an elder goes "Oh we've heard about you! You dove for the ball and sprained both your ankles at the same time!" and then another Elder says "You're like a legend on west campus, and a reason for the rest of us not to dive for the ball!" hahaha it was sooo hilarious that they knew the story of my ankle! Just too good! 

·         We were teaching Adrian the other day, and I rock paper scissored Elder Jensen to see who got to go last (more time to prep haha) which apparently I do "rock paper scissors" wrong, which is a joke itself--they say like 1, 2, rock/paper/scissor and I say 1/2/3/shoot and it's funny, they're trying to teach me "the right way"--anyway, I lost (because it was unanimous that I do it wrong) and we had to go first haha, which isn't actually that bad, and we had an AMAZING lesson with Adrian!! We walk out, about 30 minutes later, and then the Elders go in and walk out 5 MINUTES later! We busted up laughing when we found out that there was a time limit, and apparently when the Elders walked in Adrian said he only had about 5 minutes hahaha so now the Elders are afraid of letting us go first again because Hermana Woods and I just looove talking! Oh just too good! :) 

 Sometimes my new companion Hermana Woods and I are super exhausted and we fall asleep during free time and everyone finds it hilarious, little do they know we can actually hear them because we are skilled in the arts of relaxing our eyes and still hearing what's going on! Don't worry though, we've been working on effectively using our time more and use mints to wake us up and take walks to get our brains working! 

·         Thanks for the duos last time, we looooooooooove them all so much!!! I've bargained with Elder Jensen for a mountain dew code red! sweeeeet! :) Anyway, those duos are like gold here and everyone loves them and it helps us missionaries stay awake during studies haha :)

·         I don't think I'll cut my hair because braids are super nice! We'll see how long I can last with long hair in the field haha :)

I have been blessed with an amazing friendly district here at the MTC, with amazing teachers, and an amazing elearn for the language! I love the MTC sooo much and it sure is preparing me for the field! Being a missionary so far has been awesome, there's a lot of work and a lot I can be doing better, but I'm also putting my talents to great work and learning so much more! It's truly amazing! I think this week has been the strongest week where I've really felt the Spirit guiding me, teaching me, teaching through me, and proving to me not only the love from home and the love here, but also working the love of this missionary work into my heart! It truly is amazing and I am so grateful for this wonderful opportunity and for this wonderful gospel in my life! It changes lives and brings an everlasting happiness! The Lord is watching over you all and there are blessings everywhere! Keep smiling and keep laughing and keep learning! :)

I love you all lots! Thanks for all the love and support! Big hugs!!!

Love,

Hermana Day <3

P.S. thanks for the cinnamon rolls and notes Aunt Sara! :) <3

P.P.S Only DearElder or Snail-Mail me until October 30^th because then we move to Main Campus and on Nov 3^rd we go to San Fernando!

Week 3 "We've been playing volleyball because four square hasn't been open!"

Hola familia y amigos!

Que pasa? Hope all is going well! General Conference last week was AMAZING! And it's even cooler to be able to read the talks on the ipad! I got to read some of the talks on the day I really needed some motivation and it was amazing! That day I was like a spiritual giant and my lesson with our new investigator, Rebeca, fue magnifico! The spirit was SO strong! And I can't remember what I said in Spanish exactly, but it made sense. We showed her a Mormon Message and she teared up, and so did i, so i think that means it went pretty well! Mormon Messages are awesome!

We have a second investigator also, Adrian, and it went pretty well the other day, at first he wasn't interested in ANYTHING but now we've got him to at least start praying again because we shared experiences and bore testimony of how important prayer is and how it has changed our vidas for the better! Again, I've learned that as long as I put in a LOT of time to learn Spanish and study it and prepare, then the gift of tongues helps me out and all of a sudden in lessons I'm speaking Spanish that can at least be somewaht understood! haha it's amazing! :)

Also, in case you haven't caught ton yet, our investigators are totally both our teachers, Hermana Valdez and Hermano Mace, both of them are AWESOME! I sure did get blessed with an amazing district, zone, and wonderful maestros! They are so fun! We always play games and always have testimony meetings at the end of the day and oh it's just so great! We also sing hymns at the start of class and yesterday we sang "loor al profeta" (praise to the man in English) to the tune of "come thou font of every blessing" and on the third verse, we hummed and Hermana Valdez recited the (spanish of course) first vision scirptures, then we sang the last verse and AHHHH!!!! It was soooo amazing!!!!! The spirit was so strong, well, it's always strong here, it's the MTC after all, so it was even more powerful and oh I just love it! eso!

This week we also started TRC, where we skype with investigators in spanish, but because it was our first time we just met with members in person to practice with and next semana we'll have it almost every day and via skype later too!  WAAAAT!  Awesome!

Our ipads are super handy, and we found out though that California doesn't get them until about 2 months into our mission, but that's okay because the people in charge of our focus group (the elearn and ipad pilot program people) said that we got to start with the ipads because they chose students who were really smart (now that's just their rumor, but we're totally believing it because who doesn't want that compliment) 

 Also, west campus is amazing! unfortunately they're clearing everyone out of it, my branch moves on October 30, which i guess it's nice because that means we only have a few days until we leave for the field! What's weird though is that I am halfway through my time here at the MTC!!! Crazy!!!  At west campus, "investigators" (some are members, some are not) walk around the park area (which i need to get a photo of and send you sometimes because its soooo beautiful) and we talk to them during our lunch picnics and such and practice Spanish, it's awesome, I loooove it here, but I'm excited for the field too (once i learn more! haha.)  

The people I am closest with in my district (although we all get along perfectly and love each other so much! we're like a family here!) anyway, my close friends here are the ones going to California too, so that's exciting! I hope to see them in my wards and maybe even be a companion with them too! I sent some temple photos of my district with the names of each and where they're headed too! our zone is really fun, and it's kinda nice being the "oldest" distrito here because we get to do all these fun devotionals every night (I did one the other night, where we watched the Mormon Message "You never Know" it was AMAZING!! Go watch it!) and oh I just love it! eso!

The MTC is great, we're probably going to Brigham's Landing later as a zone, because we can and it's awesome and has the cutest cupcake shop ever (cocoa bean) so I'm excited!!

Also, thanks for the Halloween candy and notes and Pinterest quotes Aunt Sara!!! Looooooooove it!!! :) :) And thanks for the letter Gramma and thanks for the pictures and drawing  and notes, family! :) 

Y esta semana fue loca! especially friday (which was yesterday, what!? the days are sooooo long here but the weeks fly by!) anyway, yesterday was crazy! first off, I totally sprained my ankle playing volleyball (see below at "extra stories.")

Also, I¨m thinking of maybe cutting my hair some because it´s so crazy hot in California and it´s hard enough to do my hair here! Ah! Pero no sé, oh well! Also, I looooove dearelders, keep ém coming! =D and thanks for everything! 

Anyway, on to the good stuff! Chistoso (funny) historias de esta semana:

-The Elders have been raving over how good these "otter pops" are and how they have them every night and they're full of sugar and like "the best treats ever!" So  they brought some over for us to try and it turns out Otter Pops are literally just FREEZE POPS! Do you know how disappointed I was, to realize these amazing treats were really just frozen flavorless ice! Haha it was hilarious to see my reaction, so apparently freeze pops are called otter pops here 

-Also, our maestros, Hermana Valdez y Hermano Mace are SUUUUPER cute together and ah we are just totally wanting them to date, so we made a deal! If we accomplish the goal they give us this week (which we don't know what it is yet, but it will probably be HSI (speak your language) or memorize the primero vision) then they will go on a date together at the end of the week (where they are required to take photos as proof) so we're all super excited, because they are both so fun and super cute! eso!

-haha so we've been playing volleyball because four square hasn't been open (btw there used to be a 9 square game here, where el Rey (king) would be in the middle to show awesome skills, anyway it's not here anymore but totally add that to our list of competitive games to play) Anyway, volleyball has been going well and my skills have increased to being able to spike the ball and get some awesome high fives (from Hermanas, and hand shakes from elders of course) and so Friday, I totally ran up and dove for this ball (oops, not supposed to) and got to the ball and had this super sweet shot that went over the net and gave us the point (not that we keep track)....unfortunately when I got to the ball I totally landed on my ankles wrong and I heard this nasty sound and then I just kinda was sitting there and then I tried to get up but I totally fell back down and it was hilarious, so the elders helped me up and helped me limp over to a chair, where we watched my right ankle swell so big, it was crazy, so then we hobbled me over to the physical trainer in another dome (#splits), where we like plastic wrapped a bag of ice to my ankle, then later wrapped it, and apparently I've sprained my right ankle and I barley twisted my left one so I didn't tell her about that one because I don't want crutches, so I've been limping around on my sore left ankle, but that one is all good, and my right ankle is bruised and swollen still and we keep applying ice and keep wrapping it and such, I've gotten really good at limping down stairs, so it's all good! We like to call it my battle wound, because they promise I actually had a sweet movie style hit and it was worth it haha, anyway so limping is tons of fun, mostly because now the elders will do even more stuff for me, like get me snacks from the vending machine because they don't want to wait for me to hobble over there haha, and I get handshake high fives from the elders I played against because my dive and battle wounds were super sweet--see the bright side of this is really fun! :) plus it's just fun to laugh about it all, I strongly suggest the daily medicine of taking everything moment by moment with a smile on your face! :)

-also, Aunt Sara, we saw that chocolate frog harry potter candy and my companion totally fell into the couch with pure excitement! haha :) 

Love you all lots and lots! Big hugs! 

♥♥♥♥♥♥ Love from,  Hermana Day

Hermana Day, Week 2

HOLA!!!!!!

The MTC is amazing! This week has been so great! Also, once you make it past the first Sunday, it is sooooo spiritually uplifting and amazing! The first few days go by slow, but this week has just flown by!!! I can't believ i'm already on day 12! (or around there?? my enlglish is bad and i guess so is my counting now too! haha) anyway, tons and tons of fun here!!! The days are long with lots of work and lots of studying and learning but es muy bueno and I love it a lot!! 

This week we finished teaching our first investigator, Miguel, and we did alright, he's interested in baptism but wants to learn a little more about the "rules" of being mormon, so i think it ended pretty well. The gift of tongues is sooooo real!!!!  [We] can talk some, but most of the time the spanish comes to me! it's hard, but it's coming! and it's awesome!! Also, "Miguel" is TOTALLY OUR TEACHER NOW! His real name is Hermano Mace and he is sooooo funny, and he just talks in spanish the whole time too, but that really helps! So Hermano Mace and Hermana Valdez are our teachers, and next week they are our investigators! Next week we also to TRC, which is skyping with investigadors and members in all spanish!! AHH!!! But it'll be fun! ANd I absolutely loooooove planning lessons and learning the new vocab for them!!! 

speaking of which! I GOT AN IPAD MINI!!!!!!!! We get to use them for EVERYTHING (missionary wise haha) We use it as our planners, our calendars, and we use gospel library--which has EVERYTHING! Mormon messages, scriptures, all languages, oh it's amazing!!!! And we take notes on there for everything too, its' SOOOOOO COOOL!!!!! We will be getting them out in the field, where we might even be training people how to use them too! AWESOME! We're the first in San Fernando to be getting ipads, and we might get Facebook too but we don't know yet, it depends on our mission presidents and how using ipads goes! haha, anyway it's super awesome!! i use it for everything!! (including some of this email!!!) There's only certain apps we're allowed, and we're trying to convince them to have add a few more apps (like Evernote, and scripture mastery and such)

Okay, so Funny stories of esta semana:

So on last saturday, we did our laundry but we completely forgot about it and left it in the dryer, so around 8:30 pm after class, the Elders are talking about laundry and then you just hear me go, "CRAP!" hahaha it was soooo funny, and the Elders laughed even harder when they found out it was because we forgot our laundry haha!

Also, we were teaching our investigador on Thursday at 1:30 and we
went outside to practice some and then came back to the class room
around 1:12 and when we walked in the Elder Jenson was like "Ahh,
Hermana Day!! Miguel is already here!! His appointment was at 1, not
1:30! He's been here for about 15 minutes just waiting for you!" And
Elder Seversike was like "We looked everywhere for you but couldn't
find you anywhere outside!" Then Elder Southwick and Elder Day, with
all their stuff, are like "yeah, we were just about to go in and take
your time so he wouldn't have to keep waiting!" So we were freaking
out, grabbing all of our materials, and then we race back to our
teaching room and... Miguel wasn't even there yet!!! Turns out he was
coming at 1:30 and the Elders just busted up laughing, it was such a
good joke!! And they were sooo good at acting! Later they admitted to
planning out the joke in great detail so that they would actually be
able to trick us haha, so funny!

Also, i keep getting amazing packages (THANKS FOR THE GENERAL CONFERENCE GOODIES AUNT SARA!!!:) and there happens to be an Elder Day in our distric too, so he checked the mail the other day and there was a package slip that wasn't circed for "hermana" or "elder" so he got super excited and tried to pick up the package, but they laughed and told him that it was totally for hermana day, and they assumed we knew that by now. Haha too funny! It was really just my shirts and gym capris, THANKS MOM! They're great!

Soooo I check the four square gym dome everyday and on thursday it was
actually open!!! So I got my district and some new districts in our
zone to start a game off our square, there are like 4 battle zones
painted on the floor so you never have to wait long for your turn, and
if you are sick of four square (but let's be honest, everyone loves
four square) then there's also basketball courts in the dome also!
Four square is awesome and now we've added it to our gym schedule
because we're all crazy good at it! Sometimes they have to close it
down because people get too competitive haha so we usually play
volleyball instead. I'm not too great at volleyball, but my serves go
in and I can at least hit the ball back over the net, and everyone
else there is like Pro, but it's still fun to play. Hah one day I
totally went for the ball up at net but it hit me right in the face
instead and it actually went back over the net and my side won the
point, it was pretty  sweet (and hilarious because my forehead bruised
haha)!

Also our mission president, President Stewart, looks just like the
Master turtle (can't remember his name, sorry!) from Kung Fu Panda,
like the resemblance is uncanny and just plain awesome. He's so funny
and just so adorable, also his wife is so sweet and she actually
complimented me on my singing voice--which at first I just figured it
was because she heard my companion singing and mistaked it for me but
later I got complimented again, so apparently the Spirit hear also
just hope me sing more in tune haha seriously though when you sing
hymns, the spirit is sooooo strong! For our MTC devotional on Tuesday
we sung Joseph Smith's First prayer a few times and oh what am amazing
and strong witness of the truth of the restoration through her spirit
there!

For conference today, we have watched the first session (IT WAS AWESOME!! THey announced Uchtdorf was the next speaker and the whole congregation did like a fist pump with a "yessssss") I LOVE CONFERENCE!!! 

Love you all lots and lots! this work is amazing and I'm loving it! there's a lot to learn, but i know that the lord is watching over us and i know that this gospel blesses our lives!!!

Being a missionary is awesome and I love you all so much! 

Also, Thanks for the letter Gramma Sherman and for the email Gramma Day! Lots you lots, good to hear from you!!<33

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!

Love,

Hermana Day

Hermana Day & Hermana Morse, Provo West Campus

What Smiles!

Ahh!  I got an Ipad mini!