"Beginners are many but enders are few"

Happy P-day everyone!! I can't believe time has gone so fast. We are on week three and week six is only two days, so we're practically out of here already.

Never eat the Doritos in Mexico. No matter how much all you want to do is eat something that tastes like home, they will never taste like home. They are nasty.

Hermana Turner and I were destined to be companions. We work really well together. And when the sister training leaders asked me at the of our interview if they could do anything for me I said they could get me some real doritos. When they asked Hermana Turner at the end of her interview she said they could get more ice cream in the comedor. We share a lot of the same priorities. Also, when she said she doesn't like running, I corrected her and said No me gusta running, to which she replied, No me gusta your face. We get along really well. 

Although I think YOLO is super dumb it has inspired something in Hermana and I. YOAMO You Are Only A Missionary Once. As in, should we challenge them to be baptized tonight? Yeah, YOAMO.

There is a reason I am was called spanish speaking. Hermana Saylin and I were discussing that if we could give our lessons in English we wouldn't even really need to prepare, we would just go give an amazing lesson. Then she told me something I really needed to hear, "\that's why we were called spanish speaking. We need to learn to rely on the Lord." I needed to be humbled. I can't learn spanish without Him.

Mi distrito instead of singing a different hymn everyday like normal people we like to sing Jesus es Mi Luz everyday in class just to be funny. Also, the Hermanas and I like to sing it on the way home at night, but we don't know the words and we don't have hymn books on us while we walk so we sing like this, "jesus es mi luz. Jesuus es mi luz, jesuus es luuz, jesuus es mi luz, jesus es mi luz... mi gozo es, y conción, jesus es mi luz. Jesus es mi luuz, mi luz." 

At one point today I was wearing my mint green skinny jeans and a Utah State t-shirt. I felt great! I hadn't worn jeans in two and a half weeks.

On Sunday we a had a devotional from the CCM director and it was amazing. He told the story of when he opened his mission call 12 years ago to Chile Concepción. When he opened it his older brother went pale. His mom reminded him that six years earlier the brother recieved a mission call to serve in Chile Concepcion, but never went because he went inactive. It was really a testament that we are called to specific places for a reason. He also said, "Stick to your task until it sticks to you, because beginners are many but enders are few". Whenever I feel like sitting around chatting during my study time I remind myself of that and that the people in Honduras deserve to have the best possible missionary serving them. My teacher said yesterday, "Don't waste your time, because it is not yours to waste." I am on the Lord's time, I have no right to be wasting it. I only have three more weeks here in the CCM and I need to use every moment of it.

Yesterday morning the teachers for our zone brought in a teacher who knows Korean. She spoke nothing but Korean to us for about ten minutes and she tried to teach us how to tell someone about our families in Korean. It was so frustrating and confusing... and funny. But then I heard the most beautiful thing I've ever heard: she started speaking spanish. It felt such joy and relief when she started speaking spanish. I will forever be grateful that I am not speaking Korean.

If you have not read The Atonement and Missionary Work by Elder Holland read it. Ahora. Also, look up the youtube video of the same title. After the Korean thing yesterday, we watched the video and then did a lesson on humility. It was amazing. Elder Holland talks about how as a missionary when you think you need a rest or that the work is too hard, remember that Christ's work was hard and he didn't get to have a break during the Atonement. When you feeling saddened as a missionary you are feeling a glimpse of what Christ felt. It was a beautiful lesson.

One of our teachers challenged us to read the entire Book of Mormon before we the CCM and mark every time it mentions the Doctrine of Christ: Faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. You have to read twenty or thirty pages a day to be done by December 10, but so far it is going really well. I feel so much better now that | am reading my scriptures more through out my day.

Tomorrow we are teaching Sergio for the third time and Enrique for the first time. Teaching is slowly getting easier. The language barrier is still the hardest thing. Sergio asked a lot of questions about the three degrees of glory in out first lesson and I realized I didn't even know how to explain it very well in English, let alone in Spanish. I need to study up on it.

All in all life here in the CCM is wonderful. I learn something wonderful everyday. And I love my Hermanas to pieces. Yo sé que la Iglesia es verdadera. Sé que Dios es mi Padre Celestial y Jesucristo es mi Redentor. I miss you all. Find something to smile about today.

Love,

Hermana Odekirk (or the Latins say, Hermana Odekeek) 

P.S.

DyC 12:8

Buggs killed: 23

I wish you could all see how colorful and beautiful the houses on the mountainside are.

Clockwise starting at me: me, Mehr, Clark, Turner, Babb, Saylin eating breakfast at our usual table.

Hijelo 7 Nov 2013

Hola friends! This first week has been absolutely amazing! 

The CCM is the greatest place on earth. Well, 142nd next to all the temples of course. I think it is in kind of a bad part of town, but I´m not sure. You can google maps it. Either way, I love it here! We have small mountains on two sides and one of them has a big B on it (for  Benemito, the high school that was here before they converted it into the CCM) so it kind of makes it feel like home.

You can hear the cars and noise of the city around us and it is so weird to remember that there is a world outside of the grounds. One night the hermanas and I were walking back to our casa and we heard music coming from a huge party just outside the CCM, so naturally we started dancing. Hermana Turner randomly dances in public with me whenever I want to so get along well.

I got to go to the temple this morning!! I loved it. I did most of it in Spanish. The next two times we go we have to do it entirely en Español. I´m so excited.

THe food here is usually toned down Mexican food. I´m leaerning to like rice and beans more and more everyday. Half the stuff that I eat I don{t even know what it is, but it is usually good.

I don{t know how anyone learns a language at the Provo CCM. Here, we hear spnaish way more than you would in Provo. I haven´t heard a prayer in English in a week. Everywhere I go I somone says hola hermanas. My teacher is a native, so are most of the other teachers. I am pretty lucky because I understand about 97% of the things that he says in spanish. My spanish is coming along. I´m not fluent but I can pray and bare my testimony and sort of teach a lesson. My spanish may not be excellent but my espanglish is great!

We had to teach our first lesson in spanish on friday. Hermana Turner and I feel frustrated sometimes because we could teach an amazing lesson if we could do it in english, but that´s not what I´ve been called to do, so I guess I´ll just keep struggling through my lessons in spanish for a few more months until i get it. I just need to make better use of my study time. You make or break your mission from 7:30am to 10:30am.

We are teaching a girl names Isabel. Our first few lessons went okay, but we didn{t know how to much to her. THen on our third lesson Hermana Turner and I decided that it is more important to have the Spirit in our lessons than to have them all in spanish, so if we didn´t know how to say it in spanish we just said it in english. IT was the best lesson we´ve had so far. The Spirit was so strong. It is moments like those that remind me why I´m here. 

The elders in our district like to eat lunch with this group of latin boys who teach them slang words and tongue twisters. It is super cool to talk to them. They taught us the word, hijole. Except one time Hermana Saylin said it wrong and now I can never remember if it´s hijole or hijelo. My district corrects me on it everyday.

I share my room with Hermanas Turner, Saylin, and Babb. They are all awesome and cute and funny and I love it. We all get along great. They fun of me todos los dias for talking with my hands all the time or for wanting to stand instead of sit in my desk while we´re in class. I guess I haven´t changed much yet. :)

One important thing that I´ve learned since I´ve been here is that faith always points you toward the future. Lot´s wife looked back because she didn´t have enough faith to look forward. 

I love you all and I can´t wait to hear more from you. Yo se que nuestro Padre Celstial loves each of you and that this gospel is true. Find something to smile about today.

Love, Hermana Odekirk

P.S. Bugs killed: 16

I Made It!

I´m here in Mexico City!! All safe and sound. Mexico City is the coolest place I have ever seen!! Flying into the airport here was one of the best parts of my day, it was so cool to see the city from the air. Everything is so colorful and traffic was insane!  But then you get into the CCM and it is completely different. They keep the ground here looking like the grounds of a temple. 

There were about twenty missionaries on my flight to Dallas and about thirty of us by the time we got Mexico City. About ten of us are going to SPSE!! It is so amazing! It was so cool to be in a big group of missionaries. People would ask us who we were and when we explained that we were missionaries they would tell us good luck and what not. It happened more in Dallas than it did in Salt Lake. It just reminded me how easy it is to share the gospel. Just by being at the airport we helped expose people to the Church. 

Navigating the aitport here was crazy. It is huge, but we managed.  It got a lot more difficult once I got all my luggage. It takes a lot of organization to get that many missionaries out to the buses. 

My companion is Hermana Turner. She is absolutely adorable. She is from Orem and she just graduated high school. She'll be going to Honduras with me. :) 

I am so excite to be here! I've been waiting for this day for so long that it feels weird for it to actually be happening. It has already been such an amazing experience and it has only been ten hours. 

I love you all! I'll write more when pday.  Which I think will be thursday. 

I am so excitecd to be here and have the opportunity to share the gospel. I know that this gospel is true and that this is where I need to be.

Love, 

Hermana Odekirk