Hermana Baugh and her Mission President and his wife
Hey
everyone! So just wanted to say that I made it to Florida safely and
already have 7 baptisms lined up since being here so things are going
pretty good. Just kidding.
But
the work here is really good I've been really busy. At first it was
really weird leaving the CCM, my time there felt like two weeks but
also like I had been born and raised within those walls. It was
weird switching our brains back into English going through the
Atlanta and Tampa airports. We went through customs and couldn't help
saying things like oh lo siento or como esta and the workers were
like what are you white girls in America wearing church clothes doing
speaking to me in Spanish?
President
Cusick and his wife met all of us in the airport. And by all of us I
mean the 20 or so missionaries that met up going to Tampa in the
Atlanta airport. There were only three Hermanas. Being an Hermana in
an English speaking mission is kind of like being a different species
of missionary. Or at least that's what it feels like here. But
anyways we all went over to presidents house and I had my first meal
of not rice and beans and Nutella and frosted flakes and mangos and
salad with berries and ranch in 6 weeks and it was probably the most glorious
thing of my life. The next day was full of different training
meetings. Best part of he day was when we all got iPads. It's kind of
weird having technology again but at the same time it's not because
it's pretty much just like having electronic scriptures. Whe we are around
wifi though it's nice though because I get to read emails that come
through during the week.
Thursday
was the day that we were assigned our companion and area. I felt like
I was being set up in an arranged marriage as president called us and
our companion up one by one and told us where we were going. My
companion is Hermana Newbill and she's been out for 14 months
and we are serving in the Cortez area which is in the city of
Bradenton which is about an hour south of Tampa I think.
I
like Bradenton! It's not the prettiest or the nicest haha but there's
palm trees and people who speak Spanish so I'm happy. I was a little
overwhelmed when I got here because there are so many people we are
teaching. We've taught over 20 lessons since I got here Thursday
afternoon so yeah we've been busy! Teaching is pretty much all we do.
We don't have many member dinners because we have a rule where we
can't have a dinner with them unless they invite a nonmember. It's a
good rule though because it encourages the members to do more missionary
work and discourages missionaries like me from getting fat haha. We
did have one with this Columbian family who invited their 7th
day Adventist friends to dinner and we had this Columbian dish I
don't remember the name of and taught about the restoration. It was
really hard though because the dad if the family was so caught up
about how the sabbath should be on Saturday and yeah this was all in
Spanish so I didn't really know what was going on so my companion
talked to him while I just sat and smiled and pretended like I
understood what was going on which I'm getting pretty good at doing.
Ahh Spanish is hard I'm kind of having a hard time with it. It's hard
trying to remember to have patience and to not get frustrated at
myself sometimes. I'm glad that there are a lot of Spanish speaking
people here though because it's helping me to practice. We teach a
few people in English though so
it's nice having a break every now and then.
Sunday
was great! We went to two wards because one of our English
investigators went to the English ward. But 6 were at the Spanish
branch with us it was great! The branch president is really nice...
The first thing he asked me when I walked in though is if I played
the piano
haha so looks like I'm going to have to be doing at a lot. I have a
"try out" on Thursday and I'm debating if I want to fail it
or not.
Florida
is soo humid. I've discovered that I have a talent for being able to
sit and do absolutely nothing and still be able to sweat. It's pretty
impressive actually. We have a car though but I'm scared
because I think we are going to run out of miles soon and when that
happens that means bikes. The air con in our apartment has been
broken the
last few days though so that's been death sleeping at night. It
doesn't help that I don't have a pillow and have been using my
sweatshirt as one haha. I keep saying that there is a reason I was
called stateside...and the ability to have air con was one of them so
hopefully that gets fixed soon!
Well
I'm running out of time. I always feel like I have so many things I
want to say during the week but then when the time for emailing comes
I forget them all and end up saying a bunch of random stuff. Mission
life is hard. It's really hard and I'm already tired all the time
haha but but I just keep telling myself that that's good because it
means that we are doing our job. I know that if we keep working hard
like we've been doing there will always be people to teach here in
Bradenton. Love you all and hope everyone has a good week!
Love
Hermana Baugh
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