January letters

Andrew sent handwritten letters most of this month.  It took me a while, but I got them all typed up.... So here's the first one!

Jan 4 2012

Dearest Mom,

I got your letter, Dear Elder, and I really enjoyed hearing from you outside of email, lol. I get more time to respond. :) As for my investigators, the ones I teach a lot are just my teachers. Lol anybody else would kick us out as terrible as our lessons go. Lol But the once a week people are member volunteers from the area. Generally anyway.

No joke, we have so much time to study, but so much we have to focus on. Language and how to teach and assessing ourselves and studying in English and spanish for our lessons. Lately I have had less time for myself to go through and study what I want, but I figure that will come eventually.

I really do enjoy getting to learn though, when i'm not ridiculously frustrated...lol. You do know how much I like to have things click, so I'm sure you know how much I dislike when they don't. For probably 3-4 days nothing language wise was clicking. And I was going nuts. So I had some personal prayer time, and really asked for some help. After that things have still been clicking slower than that first week, but I'm not in distress. I trust that when the Lord needs me to be fluent, I can be fluent through Him. For now my focus is teaching and learning how to teach, because if I don't know anything or how to teach it, how can I do it even if I was fluent? That really is exactly what they want us to work on, teaching by the Spirit.

But as far as life here, it kinda just keeps going, one day at a time. Days seem to last forever though, waking up, study, preparing and then teaching and then more studying has it's own little way of dragging on and on and on. Lol it's always a blessing when any one of wants to go to the store, just because it provides a break from the schedule. Probably a couple times a week I run in to the store to pick up something for either the room or cool little study helpers. Plus we get a pretty good discount here for supplies, so that is nice too :)

It's so true when people say the days are like weeks and the weeks are like days. It feels both like yesterday and forever ago that I was here on my first day. Except now I'm a lot better at planning and preparing for the next day. I also generally feel a lot better about teaching too. Lol, I feel like I'm trying to swim across the ocean, but I'm doing my best to keep paddling. It can be frustrating and difficult, and I do feel like I'm falling behind, but i'm learning a little here and there and doing my best, overall I'm trying to. I'm so tired all the time.

I did you workout for me today and yesterday as well, and I am so sore! Lol It definitely reminds me of why I never liked working out. But I absolutely appreciate it, lol, keeps me in touch and feels like I'm home :)