Hola my friends!! I miss you all! It makes me so happy when I get emails from you guys, even if it's just to say hi! This was a good week! There was no more fainting or being sick, thank goodness! But thank you guys for checking in on me and making sure that I was okay! I can't believe I am already on my 4th week here!! It is going by so fast and slow at the same time. This week was pretty uneventful, just class, studying, and more class. We started doing this activity everyday where we have to teach a 15 minute gospel lesson to an "interested person" (but it's really just either our morning or afternoon teacher playing a character), so everyday we have to prepare a lesson and then teach it as if they were a real person. It started out really stressful but we are slowly getting better at teaching in spanish!
A highlight of this week: we got to go to the temple! The Mexico City temple is the largest temple outside of the US, I think that's what they told us anyway. It is beautiful! Inside and out! It was such a cool experience getting to get outside of the MTC for a little bit, drive through the city, and do a session at the temple. The spirit felt there is so strong. It was nice to be there and take a break from all the stress and craziness that goes on at the MTC. The day we went was the beginning of Día de los Muertos and so we thought that we would be able to see celebrations and decorations and different things like that throughout the city, but we didn't see anything! Kinda disappointing cause we were pretty excited to experience some of that! Even that night the city wasn't any more loud or crazy than it normally is as we were going to bed. It was a little weird being here on Halloween cause it was just a totally regular day. Normal classes, normal meals, normal church clothes, etc. It'll be fun when I get to Idaho cause I will at least get to experience holidays a little more than here. But, just Halloween, not a big deal.
I know I say this every week, but I love my district. Everyday we only get closer and become better friends, and it makes missionary life more enjoyable! It's so important to feel and invite the spirit throughout our days and to study all that we can, but it is also SO important to have fun. Being able to laugh together and just be comfortable around one another helps get us through the looooong days. The other morning, we had a "spicy pepper eating contest" with our old teacher, Hermano Aceves. It's so cool because he just returned from his mission not long before we got here and he started teaching so he is only 20 years old. And, even though he isn't our teacher anymore, we are still great friends with him and so every morning he will eat breakfast and talk with us. Anyway, one morning he brought Jabañero peppers with him because my companion made a bet with him that she could handle spicy foods better than he could because she is Latina. When they ate them, they were both equally uneffected, but then the rest of us tried them and oh my goodness, my tongue was on FIRE for like 20 minutes. Those are so hot. But we were all laughing so hard because the elders were all CRYING. They couldn't handle them at all!! We had so much fun together.
More good news: no one else from my district went home this week!! In fact, we got a new elder just yesterday. He transferred here from the Provo MTC where he had been for 3 weeks, and now he will finish here with us for 3 weeks. It's kinda weird having a new elder with us after we have been getting so close these past couple weeks, but he was a much needed addition to our district and we are so grateful to have him here. We received SO many new missionaries this week at the CCM. 300 new missionaries arrived here yesterday!! Crazy!! Me and my companion are pretty excited because 6 new hermanas were added to our branch, meaning we get more girls to be friends with and spend time with for our calling. We looooove all of our hermanas.
Sorry this email was pretty uneventful! I've been doing a bunch of stuff today and now am finding it hard to remember the things I wanted to talk about! But, I do want to end with this scripture that I love. It is in the Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 31:20, "Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life." This scripture gets me through everyday! The part I was focusing on this week in particular was having a brightness of hope and a love for all men. Often times we try to press forward with a steadfastness only in our faith in Christ, but we neglect those other important Christ-like attributes. We need to press forward through our good days and our bad days, having not only faith in Christ, but hope in his plan for us and for the world, and a love for all of those we come into contact with. Even here, surrounded by disciples of Christ, it can be hard to seek out that love for everyone! But, an elder in my district shared this thought, "There are only 2 groups of people in this world: those you love, and those you just don't know well enough yet." :)
Sending so much love to all of you!! Until next week!
Hermana Rawlins <3
Okay, lots of pictures...
1. Me, Elder Sorensen, Hermano Aceves, and Hermana Oliveros post Jabañero challenge. Please don't mind me and Elder Sorensen crying because they were too spicy.
2. District picture :)
3. District Hermanas
4. Front of the CCM, seriously sooo pretty!
5. My cute companion and I in front of the temple
6. District pic at the temple!
7. Mexico City Temple!!
8. Me and my comp in a CLASSIC mirror pic inside the temple's visitor's center
9. Hermanas in front of the temple
10. Me and my comp again in front of the temple
11. Hermanas and Hermano Aceves at breakfast
