What Kind of Witness?

Buenos Tardes!!

Oh goodness. I didn't think I would have that much to write about but I have a ton!! Everything good though. It has been a really good couple of days. I am going to start with Saturday. On Saturday I was asked to be a fake investigator for some of the Latinos. I was stressing out becuase I don't know very much Spanish!! I went in and the first group investigator I was assigned was someone who didn't want to join the church because they hear people steal. I explained this and they did an absolutely amazing job of helping the investigator! They mentioned how people aren't perfect and the Lord ahs to work though imperfect people. I loved it! (and yes, I was able to understand all of this in Spanish.) Then they asked if I would be baptized and I thought about it and said yes! They were so excited!! They started speaking Rapid spanish and I must have looked like a deer in headlights. I asked them to talk slower and they laughed and finished. When they were done they asked if I would speak rapid English and they love it! After helping all these missionaries I could feel the Spirit so strongly I knew they would be amazing missionaries. Every time they saw me after that they would ask when the date would be for baptism. The Latinos are so happy and extremely funny. I love them a ton.

Sunday was absolutely inspiring. I didn't understand most of what went on during sacrament meeting... I just knew that I was listening for my name to see if I would give a surprise talk and fortunately I didn't! Then, we got to watch the Easter dovotional that was broadcasted fom the Provo MTC. I saw Haley Zimmerman!!! That was really cool. Presidente Uchtdorf was the speaker and let me tell you, I have never been so inspired in my life. He talked about Easter and how it applies to missionaries. He gave some amazing quotes. ''I fear no man.'' "What kind of witness will you be?\'' and so much more. Everyone just sat in amazement. Oh we got to listen to in in English! That reminds me, when we have important meetings we wear headsets and one of the teachers translates it for us. If it is a broadcast we usually get to watch it in English. Church is the only time I have no idea what is going on so it works out in the end. Also, Presidente y Hermana Dyer thought we would enjoy an Easter present so they gave us all a little cup filled with candy. They are the sweatest people in the world! They love serving others. 

Today we were able to go to the temple again! This time I did the whole thing in Spanish and felt the spirit really strongly. Going to the temple here is always an amazing experience. (Sorry, I am using the work amazing a lot but it is true! Everything has been amazing!) After the temple we were able to eat in the cafeteria. Colombian food is amazing. Seriously. We had fried rice, chicken, bannana bread, jello, and salad..... and best of all ICE!!!! I will explain that part in a minute. After the temple we couldn't find our divers anywhere!!! Seriously, we waited for them for 2 hours. We had no idea what was going on. I felt bad for the North American's that are older than we are becuase they went on a tour of Bogota today and they were so late that there tour gets cut short. Fortunately they came and we made it back too late!! Also while we were waiting Hmnas Rhoton, Evens, Giles, and I got stopped by these people and they asked to take a picture with us. Apparently they were recent converts and traveled to the temple to see it while they wait to be able to go though. That was a good experience talking to them.

Okay, about the ice. Everything here is warm. We never have a cold drink EVER!!! I really miss that. Even when we have cereal for breakfast the milk is warm. That is the weirdest thing... When we first had it I thought it would make me sick but apparently it is safe and I didn't get sick! Now it is just weird. That is why the ice was such a speacial treat! 

All of the Latinos left during the night last night. I can't even tell you how sad that was. I had made to many friends and I won't see them again! Two elders did say that they would write me though.. oops. I didn't know what to say about that! Hopefully they don't think anything of it. The Latinos LOVE looking at pictures of our families. I realized I didn't bring any so if you would like to send some in a letter that would be wonderful!! 

I forgot to mention that across the street from the CCM is a Catholic church/school. For Easter they had a TON of festivities. We could hear all of there festivals, parades, and services. It was kind of cool but it made me wonder why we didn't celebrate good Firday and such since it is so important! With that thought in mind, something Pres. Uchtdorf stood out to me.  He said that we celebrate it every week by partaking of the sacrament. I loved that!! We don't just celebrate it once a year but it is so important that we do it every week!! Goodness, I love our church!

I hope you are doing well! I put you on the prayer role every time I go!! Bethany, please feel better! Sorry about AP Poli-Sci. You would have rocked that class! Also, sorry everyone is retiring!

Mere, I hope you had a wonderful birthday! What did you do? I didn't hear anything about it except for the Sunday dinner!

Good luck in Thailand Luke!!!

Good luck with finals to those who are taking them!!!

Mom, be safe and make sure Moose and Madchen keep you company.

I love you all mo much!!! Thanks for being so wonderful! Just know that the church is true! Also, the Lord helps you whenever you need it. I know this for a fact because when I really need to be speaking Spanish, for my investigator lessons and such, the Lord blesses me to be able to understand what they are saying and get my point across! have a wonderful week!!

Your Bolivian Missionary,

Hermana Clarissa Morey

I am so sorry but I completely forgot to mention that I won't be able to write again until NEXT Friday. Ten days from now. Wow, that is such a long time. Sorry no pictures this week!!! Two weeks until I get a latin companion. Please wish me luck! I love you all!

Exclamation Points!

Buenos Dias!!!!!

Hola from Colombia!! Sorry I don't have a ton of time so don't judge my spelling. Guys, I am litterally shaking right now. I can't even handle it!! How are you?!?!?!?! This has been a crazy week!! Oh my goodness. I have survived the first week and a half. Time here is really weird. It goes by so extemely slowly but quickly at the same time! I swear that yesterday was Sunday and then I blinked and it is today. I love it though. The people here are amazing and I have made so many friends. 

So, to start, they say that we need to be up by 6;30 in the morning but what I didn't know is that I would be getting up at 5:45 every morning. While I am a little tired it hasn't been as bad as I thought. There are 55 missionaries here right now. 25 girls and 30 boys. That feels like a ton!!! The Latinas are all very nice and  love to talk to us. They are all extremely happy and fun to be around. 

I don't know if I mentioned but the food here is different. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day and it is wonderful!!! We generally have 2 meats, a bowl of soup, and a plate of rice. It is a ton of food. It is so different but good. I love almost everything I have tried! Occasionally they try and make North American food and it is good but different. 

We went to the Temple on Tuesday! What an experience. The drivers here are absolutely crazy. They turn in front of other drivers and and I swear we almost wrecked 25 times. It was really cool though to see how everyone just drove with confidence! I am so glad I am not driving at all. Every single building here is tagged. Apparently Graffiti isn't a crime because it is litterally everywhere. I love this culture! (not enough to bring stuff like that home...) The temple was beautiful and a lot different from the Jordan River. It was really hard to do it in Spanish and even though I got to have it translated I still had to do the hard part in Spanish. But I survived!! It was a really cool experience and I can't wait to go back on Tuesday. 

Let me be a little honest here... Spanish is hard. I am not really patient with myself which is hard. There are some Hnas here that are just so good at speaking it that I feel so behind! In reality I am doing very well. I can't believe I can sort of communicate! (if people speak slowly...) I am progressing though which is what really matters. I do enjoy it and am starting to speak it subconsously... I spelled that wrong..)

Thank you so much for the notes and the movie quotes that you hid in my bag!! I loved them all! I was still finding them throughout the week and enjoyed them all. It was really fun to remember movies and read letters from you. 

There is an Elder in our districe, Elder Noriega, who seems to be super pessimistic about everything. He always tells us what he hates and yesterday we got a little annoyed so all of the girls decided to wear purple. (he says purple is the world color in the world.) When we came downstairs all of the guys had the same idea!! Also, a lot of other people had decided to wear purple that day so it was just a mass of purple. We all laughed pretty hard and he seemed to think it was funny as well. This is how missionaries in the CCM entertain themselves.

Okay, on Tuesday one of the Latina hermanas came up to me and asked if I was okay. I told her that I was and she said that I never smile!! I was shocked! I don't think anyone has ever told me that before. I thought about it and realized that I haven't been smiling very often. Not because I am sad or angry but because I get stressed around the Latinos because I have a hard time talking to them. So, I made a conscious effort to smile the rest of the week and we enjoy teasing each other. Her name is Hermana Zapota. She is from Bolivia so we talked a lot. I like her a lot and will miss her a ton when she leaves on Tuesday.

Okay, there is a sister in my distric... Hermana Evans. She reminds me almost exactly of Katie. They make the same facial expressions, laugh the same, I seriously would get homesick just being around her!! Not anymore though. She and I are really good friends. My main friends are my companion Hermana Rhoton, Hermana Giles, and Hermana Evans. We just seem to have the same personalities and enjoy spending time together! 

Oh!!! I don't know if you have gotten it back yet but Bryan has Downton abbey!!! If you haven't gotten it back you can message him on my phone or Facebook. Sorry! I forgot!

The flowers here are so different but I love them!! They are spunky and fun!!!

Okay, so I have heard from a lot of people the the first Friday is breakdown day. The day you have had enough and just cry. On Friday I was in such a good mood!! However, on Saturday... I lost it. My companions mom called because she hadn't gotten the email she had sent and was worried so my companion got to email home again. I was frustrated with Spanish, I was homesick... so that night when i was praying before bed I just started to cry. However, after thatthings have been wonderful!! you just have to survive the first week!! I love it here!!!!

I will write more on Tuesday when I email again because I forgot some things. Just know that I love studying all day!! I don't know what I did with my days before I came here because every moment is packed!!! Happy birthday Meredith!!! I can't believe that my P-day is the day AFTER your birthday!! I hope you have a wonderul day and get lots of hugs. Also, Mere!! I am practicing that hand thing just for you! It hurts but practice makes perfect!!

I love you all so much! thank you for you emails! they completely made my whole week. Hasta Martes!!!

Your Bolivian Missionary

Hermana Morey

Hitting the CCM

Family!!! I am so sorry but I don´t have a lot of time! Also, please forgive my grammer, this keyboard is different!!! Oh my goodness what an adventure this has been already!! After I left you in the airport I found the missionaries flying with me and they were all very nice and we became friends quickly! I really like them all! A lot of the missionaries that you saw were flying to Atlanta with us but they then flew to the Peru MTC. There were a lot of them! It was weird being on a plane for so long without being able to read a book or anything but we spent most of the time talking, reading our scriptures, writing in journals, or trying to sleep. When we got to Atlanta one of the sisters thought she knew were she was going and tried to lead us to our gate. We only had 13 minutes after we landed until we were supposed to be bording our other plane on the opposite side of the Atlanta Airport. We spent all 13 going the WRONG WAY!!! We ran back and found the train that would take us to our terminal and ran to the gate. I was praying so hard that we wouldn´t miss our flight and the Lord heard my prayers! We made it!! The second flight was really long and we ended up having 14 missionaries coming to the Colombia CCM. 5 Elderes and 9 Hermanas. We didn´t get to the CCM until 11:30pm and were all very tired. Pres. Dyer was really nice, showed us to our rooms and let us sleep. I am in a room with 5 other Hns and they are all super nice. I had such a hard time trying to sleep last night. I am sure that I was the last one asleep. It was hard because I realized how much I miss you and I had this overwhelming feeling that I can´t do this. It was amazingly hard. I spent all night praying and felt a lot better about staying. We all got up at six and took showers because every morning starting at 7:00 we have Book of Mormon study for an hour. Then we went to breakfast and it is hard because we have to eat everything on our plate and I haven{t been hungry but have felt really sick. I got my companion!!! Her name is Hermana Rhoton. She is really nice and we get along well. She is from Idaho. (You can find her on my facebook!)We then got all of our material!! Goodness gracious my bags are really heavy!! I am doing my best though. It is a little hard because they didn´t give us time to unpack so we have to do it on the few minutes when we have spare time. I swear that everything I needed in the past 12 hours was at the bottom of my suitcase. I am surving though. This is hard. At times I don´t think that I will make it the whole 18 months. I don´t even know if I will make it the week. However, before I left Zack told me to just focus on surviving the day. That has been helping a lot because thinking about the whole time is too overwhelming. I promise that I will try my very best to be the best missionary possible. Hopefully things will get a little easier soon. I should be getting my nametag soon! Then maybe I will actually feel like a missionary. OH! Before I forget, my first P-day isn´t until next Friday. So you won´t hear from me until then. However, after that my P-day will be on Tuesday! I don´t quite understand that part yet. It is so weird to see everything in Spanish. While we were at the Airport people would come up and talk to us and wish us luck. It is beautiful and the people are really nice. I really need to learn Spanish though. I am using all the Spanish I know so far! I am surprised at how I can use some of it. It will be nice when I speak more Spanish because most people here don´t speak very good English. I feel like things will be easier when I have gotten some sleep. I am exhausted. I just can´t sleep! oh my goodness, I love you all so much!!! I wish I had gotten to spend more time with you before I left where I wasn´t so stressed. The goodbyes were probably the hardest part. Beth, good luck at your Tennis Tournament!! Mom and Mere, good luck at work!! I miss you but will see you in not too long!! I need to go. Good luck!!

 

Your Bolivian Missionary,

 

Hermana Morey