Some Things Are Meant To Be

I would title this week, "Somethings are meant to be". Yep, that is it. You want to know why? Well, here it is!

So You know how we used to pretend that we were each the girls from Little women in correspondence with our ages? And I was always Beth.. The one who gave people medicine and then got a fever of her own and died? Well, surprise, surprise, that is exactly what happened this week.. except I am not dead!

I have been giving medicine to all those who are sick and checking up on them and whatever, and then on Friday I woke up just sick. I had a fever, a cold, stomach problems and just about the worst feelings ever .I went throughout that day just trying my best and then woke up Saturday morning with an even higher fever and I couldn't do anything. Sister Nicolaysen (the MTC presidents wife) made me stay in bed and I could not sleep because I was so frustrated I was so sick. So I got up and kept going and then that night I had a blessing from my teacher Hermano Cano, who I think the world of. It was all in Spanish but I was able to get from it that my whole body would be healed, and I remembered in my setting apart blessing how it told me that I would see miracles. so that night I went to bed and asked and pleaded so hard that I would wake up healed, and I did. It was seriously a,amazing. I still have a cough and stuffy nose but it had not kept me from working or doing anything, I felt so so blessed!

So last week a group of people went to their missions and a new group came in. So this means that there are a lot of both Nortes and LATINOS (YESSS!) It has been so fun, and especially with the calling I have, I have had the opportunity to really get to know each one. I am loving it and just am grateful for this opportunity I have to serve them! It is so weird that the olders misioneros leave this next week and that we will be the oldest ones, and that I am halfway done! YES! It is awesome, but scary at the same time! But when the old ones left, we all got to get out of this prison (it really is a prison.. no one goes in or out and if you do there are guards with shot guns) yep. and we got to go to the mercado! It was really fun and just nice to get out and see a little bit of Guatemala!

I just have to tell you all, I am so grateful for you letters and emails. I seriously cry every time I get a letter because it makes me feel so loved and comes at the times when I need them most, so really thank you for always taking the time to do that for me. It means the world! and I am am only allowed to write back on Pdays, but I do write back I promise!!!

I am doing better with the language  Hermano Cano makes us speak only Spanish from 9 in the morning to ten at night... ya right... but I try my best! I really do, and I am noticing a difference. Do the Latinos laugh at my Spanish  Yes, yes they do. But do I care? No. I keep talking, because I know it is the ONLY way I am going to improve.

I want to tell you about some neat experiences I had this week that have really shaped me and my testimony.

1. I was having sort of a hard morning the other morning, just feeling really down on myself, and I was reading my scriptures. I was reading in D &C ten where is is talking about how ministering angels will come and carry the message of the truth to the people. I KNEW at that moment that Grandma Johnson was there. I could feel it. I know that her plan right now is not going to be to help me personally, but to help carry the message of truth to my investigators. She is going to be my constant spirit companion. I loved it and it has really given me strength to know that I am not alone in this experience.

2. I have realized this week why missionarys always say they are so happy. They are not happy because great things are happening to them, they are not happy because everything is going their way, they are happy because for once in their life they are completely focused on other people.  When you focus on other people, your own needs are taken care of. I have made a goal to in my prayers and in my doings each day to make others my top priority and it will bless me far more than it ever would if I was focused on myself.

OKay now for some funny moments of the week:

1. I am really good friends with this elder in my district named Elder Uribe. During deportes one night we decided to have hymn karaoke night. We had people join in doing solos, duets, all to Spanish hymns. It was hilarious! It is just the little things that keep ya going.

2. So there was this older missionary couple who came in to talk to us about mental health and such on Sunday night (instead of watching legacy :) ) and I was talking to the wife of the couple and I was asking her about their mission or whatever. I asked her,"how has it been?" she looked at me with horror and said "WHAT?" and I said "Hows it been?" and she said " Oh I thought you said, How is the Bed?" hahahahhaa okay.. yep I am asking you how is your bed. OH the memories.

3. Our whole distrito is sick. There is not one soul left. So We like to call ourselves the nose blow choir. And a fun fact. a district of Latinos cannot sing to save their lives so whenever they start singing, we have a nose blow choir performance to drown out the noise.

I think that is about it for this week. I am just trying my hardest and it is because of you all and the Lord that I have the strength to keep going, so really I thank you for that. You never know just how much it means until you are a missionary. It is the best. So thank you! I am putting my all into this all day every day and I know that it will pay off!

I love you and and pray for you each separately and by name each night. I can feel that heavenly father is with you all as well as with me!

LOVE YOU

Hermana Funk 

Hermana Coolio Funky

Hola!

I know what you are thinking, what the heck?! she was not supposed to write until Wednesday! I know that and I am sorry, so do not feel bad if you have not emailed me because I guess our Pday changes every week, so just to be safe, always email me on Sunday or before. I really am sorry though, but I got emails enough to keep me going throughout this week! so it is totally fine!

Wow! What a week. It is always the hardest typing because I have no idea what you guys want to hear, but I think I am just going to go throughout my week and tell you some different points!

1. I have never worked so hard in my life. I really have made an effort to put my whole might mind and strength into this whole ordeal and it is paying off but it has also been some of the hardest times I have ever had. But I know that if I did not have hard times, I would not grow so it is okay. I get through them though! And being a missionary, you have bad hours and good hours, instead of good days and bad days. So one hour you are down, then the next you are up, so it all evens out in the end. :)

2. We are now teaching a new investigator... who is our teacher. And our teacher is no Mrs. nice. She looooooves to push us and she how hard we can work. She has the profile of Marta, a lady who has four kids and wants the gospel but is not married and her husband is not good to her, and just a lot of things. AND ALSO. she will take no English! The second you say something in English, she will no "no entiendo". ummm alright, let me just get out my Spanish dictionary. it is so hard. and our first lesson with her was pretty bad, we just felt like we were not working in unity and were focusing on the lesson rather than her. BUT I want to tell you what I learned from this. After our lesson, we were feeling pretty down on ourselves. And we just wanted to know how we could improve. Throughout the next couple of classes we had that day, it became very apparent how we could improve. STOP WORRYING ABOUT THE SPANISH AND FOCUS ON THE PERSON. That truly is what it comes down too. Take the time to listen to to what they are saying, without thinking in your mind what you are going to say next and then let the spirit tell you what to say. And stick to the doctrine and the things you know. We are just to focused on the Spanish rather than the person. So my companera and I are excited for tonight to really try to put that into practice. I know that it will make all the difference!

3. Everyone is sick. You don't really realize how many sicknesses there are on this planet until you come to the CCM. But lucky for them, we have something called a Botequin. A first aid kit that has just about every medicine a person could need. The leaders have to carry it around, so I even have one of my own... pretty cool huh? But seriously, there are so many people who are sick, but I have been greatly blessed and have not been sick once while I have been here, I cant even believe how lucky I am!

4. i have made a goal to read all my scriptures and predicad me evangelio in spanish. And guess what? It works! it truly makes so much of a difference! I am understanding everything my teacher is saying, what preach my gospel is saying, and even sometimes what the LAtino missioneros are saying.¨I still cannot speak it very well, but I am just trying my very hardest and best and I know that it will come!
NOW. I just have to share with you some hilarious things from the CCM this past week., Literally, this place is Hilarious. HILARIOUS.

1. The Latina hermanas love to learn English words. So sometimes I will go into their rooms at night and point at things and tell them the English words for them. But they have the hardest time understanding how to say it. For instance, I was trying to teach them how to say "hair". THEY CANNOT SAY HAIR! they say "hayyer." "hayyyyyer". no, "HAir.", okay "Hayyyyer." It is hilarious, I do it mostly for my own enjoyment. :) And then they will tell you phrases they learned in english throughout the day. This one Hermana was sitting next to me at dinner and she tapped me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear, "Am I beautiful?", mind you this hermana knows 0 English.. it was hilarious!

2. It was President nicolaysen (the MTC president) birthday this week. So during lunch, they suprised him with a marriachi band. They serendaded us all of lunch and it was just the best. They also had a cake... and well.. I love cake. So that was just the bomb.

3. Like I said last week, the hispanic elders LOVE nortes. They truly do. It is no lie. This one came up to me this week and said "give me your..... number... no.. give me your... mail... no...give me your....email. yes email." and I looked at him and I said, "I am sorry, I am a missionary!" and he didn't understand I guess.. because he is very persistent. But not instead of him, it is his companion.. so that is just a lot of fun. All the time. Also, the people working in the kitchen really love nortes too, so you just feel a lot of... love.. everywhere you go. :)

4. Like I said, yesterday we watched the Bachelor: Pioneer style. Would you like to know what this was? Legacy. Yes. Legacy. The movie mom and dad would always make us go to for family night at temple square. You would have thought we were watching Americas greatest love story. You get 100 missionaries who have not watched a movie for about a month and let them watch Legacy... man. They were hootin and hollerin and laughing at things like people dropping their hammers, crying, sighing, everything. IT WAS HILARIOUS! The elders wanted to watch the kissing moments over and over again. hahaha

5. So every night at 7:30 we have what is called refaccion, which is a break and snack time. we were having that last night, and they always give us candy on sundays. So we were all in line and they were giving us cholcoate bars with the name, St. Gerrund. I had mine in hand and this rather strict, rather obedient sister came up to me and said, "um, do you think we are allowed to eat catholic chocolate?" just saying. and then she didnt eat one. OKAY!

Truth be told, life is good here. They have us busy, and the moments that we are not busy, are the times I miss you all the most. I pray for each of you by name each night and thank my Heavenly Father that I have such an incredible family. I really have no idea how I ever got so lucky. I love my companion, my district is the best, and I am doing ym best to be the best missionary I can be. I have such a far ways to go, but I just try and keep my faith strong. Thank you all for helping me to do that!

So just a reminder, email me on Sundays, and do Dear Elders. When I dont have itme to write, I write you letters so please do not think that I have forgotten about you!!

I love each and every one of you!!

hermana coolio funky

A Day at the CCM

Alot of you have been asking, Miramy, tell us about a day in the CCM, so I am going to do that!

So we wake up at 6:30.. SURPRISE! Ad to be honest, it has not been hard at all. The first couple of nights I got a cumulative of 5 hours of sleep but that it because one of the Latinas was snoring, so then another Hermana gave me earplugs and MAN. It made all the difference! But anyway, we wake up and we have an hour to get ready, which is super nice! And then we go to breakfast. NOW. The food in the CCM has been rather hard on a lot of peoples stomachs. Almost every day people are throwing up and stuff but honestly I have prayed so hard that I would not get sick and have been very blessed because of it! I have not gotten sick, and you have to eat everything they put on your plate or else they get offended, so man.. it has been a little rough. But they do have ICE CREAM and fruit.. so ya know, I am just fine!

So after we have breakfast, we do personal study and companionship study and language study.. a lot of study, But Something interesting about those study times is that you are not studying for yourself and not just studying random language phrases, you are studying the things for your investigator, so you are constantly thinking about others which has been so awesome. I wish sometimes that I could just read the BOM, just whatever I wanted, but I know that I am out here to serve other people, not myself.

After that we have more classes, DEPORTES (sports, mom :) ) and dinner and then more classes and then we teach at night. That is about a day in the CCM. Now I have a couple things to tell you all about.

1. THE LATINOS. HILARIOUS. in the CCM, it is about half and half Latinos and North Americans. ( We cannot call ourselves Americans or else they get offended becuase they are Americans too. Whatevz. ) Anyway, they do not speak english. And I just want to get to know them so every day Hermana Godfrey (my compenera and I) go sit by them at meals and try our best to talk to them in our broken broken broken Espanol. It is hilarious. I am not sure if they are laughing at me, or if they think I am funny. Probably the first one. :) anywyay, they are just the sweetest girls and try their best to help us with our spanish and always have smiles. I seriously love them. Except for the one in my room snores... but I am over it. AND THEN there are the Latino elders... hmm hmmm hmm. I had to go and talk to our zone leader because at every meal.. well they just really love North American girls and so it was just constant stares and points and ya.. pretty funny though. I get a kick out of it sometimes and then others I am just like.. hmm. This is weird. But it has gotten better!

2. The water is constantly off. The first nightr we got here, a water pipe broke and flooded the girls rooms. So that was neat. And then they will just come around and tell us, "we are shutting off the water for 6 hours right now." Hmm, alright, thanks. And then sometimes actually like all the time, it just does not work. It is quite funny. Everything here is quite funny!

3. We are teching a real investigator!! His name is Daniel and he works in the kitchen. We had no idea he waws a real investigator until like the second time we taught him. our district all teaches him. Anyway, Hermana Godfrey and I decided that since we did not know like any spanish, we would do the best we culd and let the spirit take over. We quit wworrying about the language barrier and just did the best we could! We also started singing him hymns every night and I cannot even tellyou what a difference that has made. It has been the coolest expereince to learn that we are not teaching lessons, we are teaching people. We have been able to communicate through the spirit and he told us last night that he wants to be baptized! COOLEST THING EVER! and the thing is is that I know it is completely the spirit because We did not know enough Spanish to have it be anything else. It has been such a good growing and learning expereince. During one lesson I accidentally said "pescado" (fish) instead of "pecado" (sin) and he looked at me and said "tiene hambre?" ALRIGHT AMY.

4. I got called to be the Hermana Training LEader, which has been a very humbling experience. They do not usually call them until they have been in for at least two weeks, ad I got called on the second day because they accidentally chose two from one zone instead of one from each so they needed on from our zone. I just mostly make sure all the Hermanas are doing okay, and report it each Sunday. This past sunday we were having that meeting and they asked me different questions. SO. You know how I dont know like any spanish? So the only thing I could say was "esta Bien." to everything! ha, oh well, it was an experience to laugh about and I have a goal to get better!

5. some of the girls here know who miranda sings is! Hallelujah!

6. So I have been very discouraged with the lanugage. I mean, I am trying so hard but I can just not form sentences. I have been so down on my self and it has been a pretty rough week with that. Last night we had a devotional from Elder Scott broadcasted from the provo MTC and he talked about revelation, which was way cool. At the end he said, " I give you and Apolostic blessing from the Lord that those of you who are learning a language will be given the gift of tounges according to your faith and dillegence." It hit me like a brick. IT seriously was exactly what I needed to hear and I know that I can do this! I could appreciate your prayers as I put all I have into this!

Honestly, life is good. I am very grateful for this opportunity and I know that I need to be here. I must admit I have wished a lot this week that I can be home and I HAVE NO IDEA HOW IT HAS ONLY BEEN A WEEK?! But. That is not the point, the point is I am doing this because I know it is right.
I pray for each of you by name every night and even though I am on the opposite side of the world, I can feel your love. I am okay! I promise! I am not even lying! yes, it is hard, but if it wasn't it would not be work.
ALSO. You can send letters through Dear elder to here and also, mail gets to Guatemala just fine. Also, when sending a package, you don't need to put the stickers on, all you need to do is just put Hermana Funk!
I love you all so much. SO MUCH! I cannot wait to hear from you again!

Hermana Funk.

Hola

Hey! I am Hermana Funk and I will be serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for the next 18 months in the Guatemala City Central Mission. My sister will be updating my blog while I am on my mission, sharing different stories and experiences! If you would like to hear more, I would love to hear from you! I hope that through this blog you are able to share in my experiences alongside me. I love the gospel and am so excited I have to share it with the people of Guatemala!