Hermana Cassie Joan Gray: November 2013

November 13, 2013

Hola familia!

It is finally PDay! I am so stoked to write to all of you! I miss you all so much. I didn`t realize how hard it would be to be away from all of you! The CCM is INCREDIBLE though! The spirit is so strong. I seriously am loving it but then freaking out the whole time!

Spanish is so overwhelming. . But wonderful! It is coming slowly but surely. It really is coming quickly for only being here for one week, although in reality it doesn't feel very quickly. The teachers, Presidente Pratt and basically EVERYONE expects you to speak Spanish ALL the time! It is so so hard! Mi and mi compenera try really hard but it is so hard to not speak English. Basically President Pratt has been telling us each day that we need to speak more Spanish, it is the quickest way to learn! My teacher, Hermana Leslie, is all for us learning Spanish quickly. No joke the first day our assignment was to learn D&C 4 in Espanol. It truly is so hard. We were supposed to learn it by Saturday so what is that like three days, but we didn't have it all the way down yet. Now we are a LOT better at it although I still struggle daily with it and Spanish. I am learning a LOT about myself!

The CCM is so so beautiful! It really is INCREDIBLE! Once you arrive on campus you can just feel the immediate spirit. It is a different feeling here for sure. and I am loving all the gospel aspects of life! We have devotionals all the time! it is truly WONDERFUL! :)Mexico is truly so beautiful! I love the splash of color it has. The CCM is on 90 acres of beautiful campus. Since it used to be a school there is a big B on the mountain for the name of the school. But now the missionaries say it is for Baptism!!! You better believe it we are going to baptize! the whole mundo!Time really does seem to fly here, no joke a day is so scheduled but it goes so quickly.

Basically a normal day is like this, Get up and get ready, our casa is super incredible! The hermanas live in houses while the elders live in apartments. Our casa has like I think 4 rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom for each room, a living room, a laundry room, and thats it. But each room has 4 hermanas in it. But right now two rooms are empty. The smaller room that only houses two hermanas and then a group of hermanas left yesterday to the field and so they will be replaced today hopefully with the arrival of new missionaries! So in my cuatro is Hermana Williams and I, Wermana Sewill, and Hermana Klivans! They are all so wonderful.

But back to what a day is like. Basically our room gets up at 6:00 so that we can work out! Yes, we are overachievers! Sewell is all for it! She is super on top of getting us places. So we work out. Then eat breakfast at seven, then after breakfast we have personal study for an hour, and then language study until lunch with Hermana Leslie. Basically it really isn't language study though. It really is just like she teaches us about the gospel and a little language using spanish and we learn verbs and stuff. So basically you just have to pray lots that you can pick up the language easily. Then lunch, after lunch we do an additional hour of langauage study with your companion. Then after that is Gym time, after gym is TALL lab normally, which basically is learning spanish on the computers (personally I LOVE TALL! I feel like I get so much out of it, although it is super confusing because they literally gave you no intro and just threw you into it and you hoped you understood! haha. But it is coming and it is really helping me with Spanish), after Tall we have additional study time, which is when me and Hermana Williams normally plan for our investigator and pray that we can teach him in spanish. haha. Then we have dinner and after dinner is an investigator! Right now we only have one! Eugenio! But this first investigator becomes our teacher this thursday. . (me and Hermana Williams knew he wasn't a real investigator cause we looked for a G line. haha) We are GENIUSES! But he is really great at pretending like and investigator and I think this is where I truly learn the most. I learn to be confident in the Spanish that I think I know and just speak what I am saying. Then at 9 we have personal time and get ready for bed and we are in bed at 10:30! Crazy! Then repeat the process!

Sundays and Tuesdays are different! Obviously Sunday we have church and what not. We have relief society with Hermana Pratt and then we have an MTC presidency message. Sacrament you do with your zone and district! I am in district 16C! :) We are the best! Sacrament is ALL in spanish. And it is a little intense because you don't know if you are speaking or not until they announce it! AHHHHH!!! I was freaking out. I got asked to say the prayer though which I was fine with because we have had to pray in Spanish since the moment we got here, although it still was a little intimidating. So you don't know if we are speaking until our branch president gets up and announces the speakers! Lets just say I was grateful I only said a prayer. Who knows I might speak this week though! =)

Tuesday nights are maybe my favorite (minus P DAY!) We have the chance to have a devotional! Yesterday was L. Tom Perry broadcasted in from the Provo MTC! So so good! He was telling us the story of the tsunami in the Philippines and how all the missionaries were safe and the miracles that occurred to get them out! It was truly inspiring! He basically was like God watches out for his missionaries!! He will make sure you are safe when you dedicate your life to him. It was really fantastic! (p.s. so cool that you got to shake his hand Allie cat! OOOBER jealous here! They said a Qof12 was speaking, but then I realized it was being broadcasted in so I was a little disappointed but not really!) Still jealous though!

Eugenio is our investigator right now. He is super incredible. It is fun to try to teach him in Spanish. Although most of the time we just give him blank stares and are like what did he just say! But I actually understand a lot of what he says I just don't know how to reply in Spanish! So it's great to see us progress. Hermana Williams and I say a prayer before we go in each time and it truly was incredible. One night I asked that we could understand what he was saying and that the Lord would help us respond! No joke we understood basically 90 percent of what he said! Which is incredible for Hermana Williams who speaks no Spanish before she came! It really is humbling. The lord knows each of us so well. I really needed that that day to know that the Lord would help me with Spanish.

A little random information that I though was fun! The toilets are weird but smart! The handle is actually by your foot! Which is GENIUS! whoever in America thought to put it by your hand is so dumb! But they actually have hand flush ones and foot flush ones so it is neat and confusing, I feel like I have to figure out the bathroom every time I go in there!.

Oh someone asked about the showering system! It is totally like clear creek as in we have to be FAST! We wake up at six and have to get FOUR girls ready in forty minutes (cause we work out) technically we don't have to get up until 6:30 but gym really isn't that helpful it's more just playing volleyball and stuff. Which would be great if we were any good but we aren't so it really is just about having fun! haha.

Mexico is so beautiful! Sirens are going ALL THE TIME! It is ridiculous but awesome!

We also had the chance to go to the temple this morning that's why my email is later in the day. We had the chance to go to the temple with our district. We'll go every other week so I will go three times before I leave! The first time (today) you could go through in English and no I will have to go through in Spanish the next two times! Crazy but true! It was so beautiful! Hopefully I can attach some pictures!

Seriously all of you are so INCREDIBLE for writing me! I miss you all so much. Randomly a wave of homesickness will hit me but mostly I am okay. I am always super happy if you can't tell by my novel! Hello! It is seriously amazing and the spirit is so strong so how can I not be happy! But it is still hard to randomly miss you when I think about you for too long! I am really fine though! And it's helping knowing mom and dad are going on their cruise soon! So even if I wanted to leave (which I do but I don't ya know! The work is incredible but hard, and I would just want to leave to see all of you which is great but would be totally pointless at this point!)!

The food is okay. Not my favorite. Some meals aren't too bad! My favorite Mexican meal has been the tamales! SO SO good! But really it's just super bland food. I may have freaked out on Tuesday when it was pizza for dinner! Costco pizza! WAHOOO!!!! I was so so happy! =)

Pizza seriously made my day! I miss americano food so much! I am so happy to be going back to the US, you have NO IDEA! I love it here though and the food seriously isn't that bad! Not the same as mom's cooking though! I miss that for sure! I love when they try to feed us americano food though. Seriously it's like a corn dog every once in a while or a hot dog which are so nasty anyways but I am always so happy after! Makes me feel wonderful!

Thanks so much for your letters! I was so so happy!

I am so dumb and forgot the cord to my camera. . =( which really won't be that big of a deal when I get back to the US cause I will just use the DS card plug in but here I am borrowing a USP port thing so hopefully it works! So you can get some pictures! But if not then you will definitely get pictures from me in a few weeks! haha. And I already have some stuff to send you when I get back into the US (I can't really mail large packages to the US from here) But I have some things I want to send back to mom for my scrapbook and what not!

Marci, the keyboard is a Spanish keyboard so the spacing is a little different. Mostly the same though. like the apostrophe is in a different spot. . . and there are some Spanish letters on it! Allie cat the Marine core ball looked fun and congrats on your first buy at Quilted Bear! That's awesome! IT will be SO SO wonderful! You'll be amazing! I want to hear what KAMI is having!!!!! Lame sauces, keeping a big surprise from me like that! =( Little Cassie Junior maybe. . . . haha

Well it seriously was great hearing from all of you! I love and miss you all so much! But I know this is where I am supposed to be that's why I think it is so hard yet easy. Spanish will come! or at least it better! P.s. I totally met a Hermana Brugman who actually left for MY mission today! She is still to this day the ONLY other person I know. I am actually friends with her on Facebook because we met on a Facebook page a while ago. She still is the only Hermana I know going to Chesapeake though! Apparently there are only like 5 Spanish sisters in Chesapeake! Which is crazy sauce so I will definitely have to step it up!

Mom thanks so much for fixing my skirt before I came! And with all of your help! You seriously are the BEST mom in the whole world! I love you all so much! Dad I love you too!! Remember I am your favorite so I want to hear from you at least double Collin! So get writing!!! =)

Love and Miss you!

Con amor,

Hermana Gray

Shout out to Nate for your birthday this week! Hope it is wonderful! and mom and Dad have so much fun with Steve and Jan on your cruise! Wave to me in Mexico! Miss you both!

Yo se que el libro de mormon is true. yo se que espiritu santo es real. y that Dios bendices familias. Estoy feliz es missionera por my Dios. Love you! Short testimony for you!

Here is a few pictures! I am taking lots but I can only take them on PDAY: at least here. .. =( But I LOVE IT! one week down peeps!

November 6, 2013

Hola familia!

I made it to Mexico City! Oh my goodness is it so beautiful! I am going to love it! Only got lost in the airport a couple of times, ha ha. One sister accidentally went through a security thing on our layover so she had to go through security again! But she made it so it wasn`t too big of a deal! My flights were awesome and I had the window seats both times! Yay for windows!! But it was kind of a bummer because I didn`t sit by any of the other missionaries. There were about 25 of us on the flight. We had about ten from Salt lake then we met up with the others in Texas.

Super crazy sauce my companion is Kaitlyn Williams, Hermana Williams. But it was funny because she was the one other sister that I was really talking to on the plane and during our layovers. So that was really cool when we got here and we were companions! She is the second oldest of 7 kids, she is from Eagle Mountain, went to Rockwell. She is allergic to gluten! Crazy that we became pretty great friends before we even got here. Such a blessing! We were both glad our companions were not crazy! At least that we know of yet. ;)

We traveled by bus from the airport, a big CCM bus! Got to experience all of the crazy Mexican driving! It was super wonderful. Hermano Silva taught us a little spanish on the way over. It was a great experience. Funny cause the guy at the airport who was inside to greet us spoke no english! So fun though! Learning lots and it hasn`t been that long!! Some random lady at the airport translated for us! Basically he said follow me and we went and got on the bus.

We basically put on our name tags, watched a welcome video then came in and wrote you! We recieved a huge envelope upon arrival that has our key to our apartment, apparently the sisters are all in little casas, so that will be fun to check those out! It also has some random info, a map, two name tags, one of which I am wearing! Crazy! I think today we get to unpack and finish orientation then tomorrow we start head strong! It will be so incredible!

I also think I have to visit the doctor about shots. . . whoops! haha. It will all be great though!

Oh and Hermana williams is headed to Houston Texas for her mission! So that was kind of neat we stopped in Texas on the way. She seems super incredible! Can`t wait to get to know her more and learn some spanish!

I am starting to understand what Collin said about the keyboard. . . whoops!

Love you,

Hermana Cassie Joan Gray