When it Rains it Pours

I’m a little late getting Hermana Wagner’s email from last Friday posted – she’s doing so well & it is wonderful to have a chance to video chat with her! ❤

 

Hey all!

This week has been absolutely amazing! It has gotten so much easier than when I first got here!

This past week is has rained so much! It was pouring down rain as my district and I were leaving dinner, and all of the Hermanas who didn't have umbrellas were sprinting across the cross walk. The cross walk has yellow paint stripes and they get really slippery when they are wet. Surprisingly none of the Hermanas fell. So my companion and I start speed walking because we were all running late for our study time (we did have an umbrella) , and down I went! I slipped in on one of the yellow stripes and completely wiped out and lucky for me I landed in a pretty big puddle! My companion has decided that she can no longer look at that cross walk with out laughing. 🙂

By our classroom at the CCM there is a big Palm Tree and there are tons of parakeets here because they love the palm trees. Our district decided that we needed to name one of the birds so we named is saus. So the reason for the title is because of how much it rained,  but it poured spiritually this week! I have begun to pick up Spanish really well, during practice lessons my companion no longer does most of the talking, a lot of times I end up doing a lot of the talking. I am able to put sentences together and I don't have to think to hard about what I want to say because it has begun to come naturally. my district started playing a game where we are only aloud to speak Spanish for the entire day and we have 5 little sticker tags on our name tags, and those are our 5 chances to speak English and if someone catches you speaking English they take one of your tags. My Spanish grew so much from this game, and I realized that I had been using my English as a crutch. My district has a goal to memorize all of the 42 principles with scriptures by the end of our 4th week.

So far all is going well, my companion and I have memorized 16 of the principles with scriptures. Another district goal is to memorize 70 words and 18 phrases a day. My companion and I have been memorizing 100 words and 18 phrases a day, and it has been going really well. Today we went to Imigration so we got to leave the CCM! The driving here is interesting because they drive pretty fast and their are people who are walking in the middle of the street selling things. Well my time is up and I love you all! I am going to attempt to bear my testimony is Spanish.

Yo se que La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias es verdad. Yo se que Josè Smith vio nuestro Padre Celestial Y Jesucristo. Yo se que Russel M Nelson es la Profeta. Jesucristo sufrio en la Jardine de Getsemane, y por medio Jesucristo y la expiacion ser limpios neustros pecados. En el nombre de Jesucristo Amen.

Art Exchange Days 14-17

More water color experiments….

Email, Video & Pictures of Hermana Wagner from the CCM (MTC)!!!

Hey all!!! The CCM is amazing! The first few days were rough and awful because they had us memorizing so much stuff that we felt like our brains were going to fry and we have to write a five minute talk in Spanish every week because we dont know who will be speaking! But after the first week things got so much better, I have been able to focus and I am beginning to understand the language! I absolutely love speaking Spanish, it is so much fun to speak and fun to learn!

My companion is amazing! She has been helping me to be more positive and we have become super tight and really good friends. We all started keeping quote books so that we could remember all of the funny things that have been said and done.

The spirit here is so strong, especially during the devotionals! I have been putting my piano playing to use, i have volunteered to play a few times because I have been dying to play, and I am playing the piano for church on Sundays as well.

I was really struggling with being able to put sentences and letter together, and it really frustrated me because I felt like I was useless when my companion and I were teaching lessons. I then had someone tell me that I was relying to much on myself and that I needed to rely on the Savior and my Heavenly Father more. As soon as I started doing that, things started to click and make sense. I was able to teach more and put what I felt into words. I have also started to think in Spanish to the point where sometimes when I see words in English I will read them as the word in Spanish. The Gift of Tongues is real and it is such a blessing! Here are some things that I learned this week.

1.) I used to read my scriptures, pray, and go to church for myself. But now, everything that I do is for those that I am preparing to teach

2.) It is through the spirit that our lesson ceases to be ours and becomes his

3.) We are not the ones that prepare the people we teach to be ready to accept the gospel, it is the savior who prepares them to be ready to hear our message and the Holy Ghost that prepares them to be baptized, we are the tools that make it possible

 

Art Exchange days 10-13

Still sticking to water color – I’ve learned a bunch through practice and experimenting. I still don’t know much of what I’m doing. But, I really do like the way the four of these turned out. I think the reason I like the watercolor is the blending and blur of mixed color – which I am sure I am far from doing it correctly or effectively, however, I am having fun. Anyway, this isn’t about being a great artist or anything, this is about having fun and sharing my attempts as I go (including the epic flops if there are any – though honestly, if it flops that bad, I scrap it before anyone sees and start over, lol). So, here you go – these scans came out quite a bit better than the last two:

Picture of Hermana Wagner

I got home from church today and found this photo in my email inbox from some sweet sister who sent it on to me ❤ Always a thrill to see our girl & how happy she is!!!

First Picture of Hermana Wagner in the MTC!!

While we didn’t get an email from her yesterday (we will give her grief over that one for sure, lol) Esteban (a worker at the MTC) tagged me in this photo on Facebook today – so great to see her adorable mug ❤

Art Exchange days 8 & 9

Still playing around with water colors and enjoying it –  these aren’t spectacular or anything, but I’ve been learning and I don’t hate how they turned out a least. I tried an experiment with the blue one, but it didn’t turn out. I think I know what went wrong & I might try it again at some point.  I also noticed that our scanner doesn’t always pick up on some of the subtler huges – just turns them white – so the clouds, for example, in the field of flowers (and the flowers are more purple in the orginal and have more variation) have more color and texture to them that what shows up in this scan. But that’s okay. It’s still a fun project.

Art Exchange day 7

Still having fun with watercolors – still have no idea what I’m doing, but I am enjoying it & relatively pleased with the results 😀 Here is Wisteria:

Art Exchange Days 5&6

I decided to experiment more with watercolor – I really have very limited knowledge of what I am doing, just learning as I go. I like fairly well how the tree turned out. I am not completely sure I love the Moonrise…. I don’t hate it as much now as I did when I finished it last night though!

30 Days of Postcard Art

Another month of fun! This time it’s 30 days of art – each day we send off a postcard with art on it (usually something we’ve done ourselves) to someone in our list. Rather fun and I enjoy doing something artistic each day and I have found that I improve as I draw more. Here are days 1-4: