Mabuhay!!! :D (Tagalog)
Yay!!! So much to write today. I hope I have enough time. You'd be surprised how quickly my time on the computer goes!
First things first -- Please tell Jayden I said "HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY!!" and Dad - HAPPY SOON-TO-BE BIRTHDAY!!! I love and miss you oodles and oodles! ;)
So this past week has been really crazy. Talk about a whirlwind of emotions! I'm happy, I'm tired, I'm frustrated, I'm exhausted, I'm energetic, - you name it... I've probably felt it! There are days that are so jam packed with things to do that we don't get to have personal or companionship study and other times when we don't get to have lunch until super late. I seriously feel like I'm talking ALL DAY long. It's cool though because the people that I meet here on temple square are SO unique. I've given tours to people from the Congo and have also met a ton of Europeans and also a lot of Jewish people! You wouldn't believe the miracles that go on here at Temple Square. We literally NEVER run out of people to be teaching or things we could be doing. I have 35 referrals that I still have to contact and that's not including the people that I'm already teaching! Ahh!
Yesterday we actually had a little miracle during our flagpole tour, that I want to share with you. Every hour on the hour we have 2 sisters that will give a tour for people. It's insane how the Lord speaks to us about the needs of the people in the group. You take them to different places through inspiration of where you feel they need to go and then afterwards you are just led to speak to people who really need to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I met this one woman who was taking a road trip with her son across the US. She is from Mexico City and lives in Waukegan, Illinois! She met a woman walking out of the temple and then decided to come take a tour. Her son is about 9 years old. Anyways- so after we went to the Christus statue I felt really inspired to go talk to her. When I started talking about her she said she had no idea that this Temple was a part of the Mormon church. She then started talking about how before she moved to the United States (about 10 years ago) she was meeting with her local missionaries in Mexico!!! And that she was waiting for them to contact her again once she came to the United States but no one ever came to her door. My eyes started getting full of water, I could hardly believe it. I know that there are no such things as coincidences!! We were also able to take her to go see this film that we have about families, and she started bawling. Ahh! I just love this work. It's so amazing to help people come to the understanding that though our families all vary in size and are all very different, the family is the central part of our Heavenly Father's plan for us. He knows that the home is the best place to teach children about our Savior and where we can all be united and comforted in knowing that we can be together forever. So beautiful!
One really cool thing about my mission is that we get to have an "explore day" where we can go watch all the films and tour every building and go to all these super cool places that the public can't access. HA! Makes me feel legit! My little swipey card gets me into almost every part of Temple Square. One of these really cool places are the underground tunnels under Temple Square. Yeppp! It's basically a whole nother world down there. My companion, Sister Hee, Sister Dizon (the Philipino and the other Temple Square Coordinator(TSC) with my comp) and her companion Sister Centeno (from Honduras) all went and toured around. We heard that there was a 'special guest' at Temple Square so they closed down the Tabernacle. Us and our nosey little selves went to the underground tunnels to find our where the main little office thing is for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and also to see if we could get any insides of who this person was. We heard some singing and the mormon tabernacle choir to find that STEVIE WONDER was singing with the MOTAB!!!! And we were listening to him sing! We didn't get to go see him because security stopped us before we got too far... but it was so awesome. Lol.
So one thing that I've really been struggling with is memorizing all of the facts about Temple Square. A couple of days ago I went through a mental breakdown because of my darn perfectionism. There is just so much information to know and I am so impatient with myself. I want to know all of the information and I want to know it NOW. It's awful. I've been doing better at being a little more patient with myself but in the meantime I will take every chance I get to learn another fact. I have 18 months to get this down! :)
The other great thing that has been going on is with Sister Centeno. So here's a brief little background... Sister Centeno has actually been on her mission for 7 months now but she just arrived two days after me to Temple Square because she is actually serving her mission in the Mexico City Visitor's Center. It's under construction right now so they sent 13 sisters with little to no understanding of English to get trained more here. It's been such an amazing experience being able to teach her English. I'm the only one that really understands her and it's so sad to see all of these girls struggling. It's also amazing though to see how quickly they are picking up English because they are completely immersed in it. They will only be here until September but until then they are expected to learn and give tours to the best of their abilities. I also know that THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES... because I have been struggling with the facts of things and also feeling confident in teaching Hispanics. I never did any role-plays in the MTC in Spanish and it's scary! Sister Centeno and I practice while our companions are doing their TSC stuff. Yayyy!!! So much fun. Little by little.
That's really all I have for you today... other than that I think it's really awesome that all of our mission vehicles have names... :D :D :D
We have Lilo, Thunder, Nemo, Zora Mae, McQueen, Pumba, and Stewart. :)
Oh! And once a transfer I get to go listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir perform their weekly Sunday broadcast at "Music & the Spoken Word" If you get a chance to ever watch it -- DO IT!!!!! It's so beautiful.
I also haven't really had any negative experiences here yet -- but I do get some really rude people who don't say hi back to me which I find extremely unnerving. I even smile! -__-
By the way -- our mission is now up to 191 sisters!!!
Yay! So... my invitation for this week is to 1 (write your favorite missionary a letter.. aka ME) and 2. Tell everyone in your family that you love them. One. By. One.
:D
I love you all so much!!! Thank you for supporting me in the Lord's work.
SMILE :D, BE HAPPY :), & REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE! <3
Love always,
Sister Cuevas
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