Great Week!

7-15-14

So this week has been GREAT! I can really feel the Spirit here and I'm starting to really like it.  It's still hard, but it's a good hard.  I can really feel the prayers and love of family and friends.  I've run into several people from BYU this week, which makes it really fun.  I love seeing people I know here.  

Learning Spanish is getting a little more difficult, but I'm so glad I had Ms.Villadoniga  as a Spanish teacher in high school.  She taught us so much, I just wish I remembered more of it!  But I had a kind of funny experience with Spanish this week.  Some girls who only speak Spanish sat down next to me and lunch one day so I tried to talk to them.  I asked where they were from (all in Spanish) and found out they were from Guatemala, sweet.  Then one of them asked me something, and I thought it was where I was from so I said Florida, but then I second-guessed myself and said I'd be serving my mission in California.  But that didn't appear to be the answer they wanted either because they just stared at me, so I told them I had been here for a week.  That wasn't the right answer either.  They just smiled at each other and shook their heads.  Obviously I had no idea what they had asked. So it was kind of embarrassing but I think I'm going to have to get used to those kind of encounters for a little while.

So we're in the heart of Mexico City here, and we can hear gunshots at night all the time! It's the craziest thing.  But I know we're protected because we're on the Lord's errand.  And also by 15 foot walls of barbed wire.  But it's really interesting. We also hear stray dogs barking all the time.  There was one night (we sleep with our window open because there's not central heating or cooling) when I swear every dog in the city decided to howl and bark at the moon.  It was crazy.  We can also hear the sounds of the city all the time.  Saturday night there was a huge fiesta that went on all night long.  It's so fun to hear.  And they shoot cannons or fireworks or something off all the time.  Apparently it's for the Saints?

Anyways, so this week has been so great, and one of the reasons why is because i realized that when you align your will with the will of God that's when you'll be truly happy.  When I first got here I was still thinking about all the things I'd be missing and I still wanted those things.  But I've gained a desire to not just be here, but be fully invested here, and that has been one of the best things for me.  There's a talk by a mission president called ''The Fourth Missionary'' and one of the things it says is why give up everything to be here, but not get anything out of it? The way we get something out of our mission experience is not just by doing what the Lord has asked of us, but DESIRING to do it.  That's made such a big difference for me!  

And I've seen a lot of tender mercies from the Lord this week.  There was one night when I was feeling a little down and my companion, Hermana Carlson started singing the hymn ''Lead Kindly Light''.  The lyrics were so comforting to me.  I was so glad she started singing it.  It made me feel a lot better.

Also, I'm starting to understand the scriptures in Spanish... un poco... a little.  But it's such a cool feeling to read a scripture in Spanish and not have to look up the English translation of it!

Third tender mercy of this week:  there was another point when I was feeling a little homesick (which has only happened twice this week) and an elder in our district opened up his scriptures to a random page.  It was D&C 31.  He shared it with my companion and I and it was EXACTLY what I needed at that moment. It's the Lord talking to Thomas B. Marsh, a missionary and in D&C 31:6 it says, ''Behold, verily I say unto you, go from them (your family) only for a little time, and declare my word, and I will prepare a place for them.''  Ah, I love that. So many blessings come from serving a mission and I can see that already.  And I know they won't just come to me, but my family also, as I'm away from you guys for only a little while. This work is so great.  

Sending lots and lots of love from the heart of Mexico City,

Hermana Horne