49 Lessons!

Hola Familia:

I finally got my camera to work. 

Sister Garcia and I have been on fiiiire all week. 49 lessons! We are super happy together.

Lia and her new companion, Hermana Garcia.

Hermana Garcia is so great. Her past couple companionships have been a little rough so she’s estatic that we’re working so productively. I still crack up every time she uses English-- she actually speaks pretty well just from what she learned in school. I’m not sure why I get such a kick out of the English phrases she throws in, like “Nice.” or “Gosh.” or “Not anymore.”

One Spanish phrase I’ve picked up from her is how she always says “Ya estuvo” which is yucateca for “it already happened,” like, “it doesn’t matter anymore” or “whatever.” Last week we had a traumatic spider-killing (the first of about 10 in our new house--they are the big palm-sized kind), and after the frenzy of tennis-shoe smashing and shrieking subsided she looked down at it and said, after a second, “Ya estuvo.”

 "Los Almendros" where Lia loved the live musicians.

We are teaching a family that was a reference from a couple in our ward. They invited them over for a family night with us and they wanted to keep listening (that would be an excellent idea for you guys, by the way). At first it was just the parents, Luci y Carlos, that wanted to listen and were thrilled at all the tools the church has for building strong families. But they were told us “our teenage daughters are never home, and they’ll never want to listen.” Never underestimate the power of the Spirit. We caught the daughters late one night because they are on vacation for La Semana Santa (Holy Week). They both accepted fechas (dates). I LOVE seeing them kneel in prayer together as a family. I love seeing how the restored gospel

A Lovely Park in Mulsay.

CHANGES LIVES.

Since starting the intercambios (exchanges, the trainers meet with different sisters for a short visit and help with training) with the sisters I’m in charge of, I’ve learned a lot about judging. At first I was really worried because I was afraid it was wrong to try to look for people’s problems and try to judge what they needed to work on. I realized the way I judge is a mix of righteous judging and the bad kind of judging. The talk “‘Judge Not’ and Judging” by Elder Dallin H. Oaks really helped me. More on that next week.

Thank you all for your emails. 

Mucho amor,

Hna Ludlam