Monday, February 20, 2012

"As We Stumble Along..." Letter #2


Musical reference in the Subject line anyone...!?! I wouldn't execpt you all to get it, but it is fun coming up with musical references that describe my week! :)

WHITNEY HOUSTON DIED!?!?! Why didn't anyone tell me? I had to find out from somone else's mail! Not that I'm that big of a fan, but you still need to keep me up to date on the big news and happenings of the outside world!

Hola Mi Familia!

A week and a half down...7 1/2 to go! So, yeah mom, I've heard a lot about visas! And not only to Mexico, but some to Argentina and other places. And our teacher said lately more and more visus to Mexico are getting delayed or whatever. So who knows! I could be reassigned for a few weeks or months...we'll just have to wait and see...

So you know how it snowed last Sunday? Well, it did it again THIS Sunday! However, it was nice enough to go on a temple walk so I was able to take pictures. Unfortunatley I can't send pictures via email here. The way they have the security on the computers doesn't allow it the computer to recognize external devices, so I will just have to print them and send them. Expect some soon!

Sounds like you all had a nice valentines day! How thoughtful of Cole to spend so much time on all of you! Thanks Cole for my valentine! Tell him to check his email; I'm sending him a note!

Congrats on your game Alex! And thanks for my little note! :)

This week has been kind of a blur! It's true what they said. Once you get past your 1st Sunday, time flies by! This week has gone by so fast it's crazy! Tuesday we had a devotional by Don R. Clarke of the Seventy. It was great! The choir sang the song we had practiced the sunday before and it was powerful!

We continued to teach our "investigator" this week. "As We Stumbled Along" (musical reference used! Ha!) we've all come so far in learning spanish it is amazing! I can already feel the gift of tongues beginning to work. Spanish and I have a love/hate relationship. I am more advanced than everyone in my class so that makes it great and I can teach fairly well, but sometimes I get frustrated and hate spanish with a passion! Ha! It's all good! I just need to realize that It takes time and  doesn't all come at once. My comp still doesn't know anything though. I have to teach most of the lesson myself because he doesn't know what to say and freaks out and looks at me to give his part. So I feel like it is a one on one sometimes with me and the investigator. We taught him how to pray and we committed him...well more like asked him...to be baptized. He asked us why he had to be baptized if he was already baptized as a baby and I tried to explain but was not prepared with vocab so I just said we would come back later and explain it. When we taught him again, I explained and I think he understood and said he would be baptized but I couldn't completely understand since there was no definte yes or no. Luckily that was our last lesson with him and we won't have to struggle through that at the moment.

We got our 2nd teacher who come to find out was our "investigator", so now my RA from last semester is our 2nd teacher. It's really weird and I don't know how I feel with him being my teacher. So from now on our investigators will be our teachers and we will just be teaching them everyday. This past week I also auditioned to do a muscial number in the devotial/fireside/or any other meeting. I sang "My Soul Hungered" and when I was done, they said I had a beautiful voice and then asked if I had done drama? I said yes, and apparently I was being too dramatic and theatrical! Ha! Imgaine that! I guess I got carried away after just having my audition recently and I guess I was still in the acting mode. Which is weird because I've never done that when I sing in church...hmmm...They said I was a definite yes if I didn't act so much and just let the spirit testify. However since I don't leave till April, they said it may be a few weeks before they can get me into a meeting. That's okay though! At least I will be doing it sometime! I recorded one of my practices for you, mom, but seeing as how I can't send anything via email right now, it will have to wait for a few months. Sorry :(

Speaking of drama and my audition....Any news!!?!?! I'm starting to get ansy! I even dreamed about it last night :/ Don't forget to check my email often in case something comes as well as the phone. Please let me know ASAP no matter what happens! Dearelder is fastest so just paste the email in the body or whatevs.

So I saw a few people this week! I saw Brother Dunford's parents. I guess they are serving somewhere. You will have to ask about that. 105 to be mission presidents...I just don't remember where to though.

So Dad, since you wanted a routine, my schedule is different everyday, but here is a rough schedule. We wake up about 6:05AM to get showers before everyone else does at 6:30AM. We usually have personal study from 7AM-8AM and then breakfast after that. After breakfast is usally more personal study then classroom instruction for 3 hours. We break for lunch at 1PM then have Language Studay and computer lab time. We have Gym in there sometime (depending on the day we have it in the afternoon or morning) and then Dinner at 6PM. After dinner is 3 more hours of class and then back to the Residence Halls. We have journal/prep for next day time till 10:30 then it's sleep time! Our days are pretty busy and jam packed! We spend more time in our classroom then we do in the Residence. Our "service" assignment is on Saturday mornings and my comp and I clean bathrooms since it takes the least amount of time than the other assignments.We usually get done within 15 minutes. So yeah...that's my day!

I'm pretty proud of myself! I go running during gym time and use the machines as well. And for meals I usually always have salad with the main course and drink only water. I can see myself getting tired of the food pretty soon since It is cafeteria stuff, but not cheap stuff, pretty good.

I have been really tired during the day! I don't know why! Sometimes it takes me a while to fall asleep and I constantly wake up in the night for some reason. I bought ear plugs though which hep beautifully with the roomates' snoring!

I have also gotten a few people loving essential oils! (Thanks Grandma and Papa!) I've been using them for immunity and breathing because everyone has been getting colds here. They seem to be working well! I aslo gave my comp some to help with breathing and it reduced the snoring a bit! They are fantastic!

Well, that's about all I have! I feel like this has been quite a lengthy email! Hope you enjoy! Want to know anything else?

Thanks for the letters and words of encouragement this week! Mailtime is my favorite time of the day! Keep em comin!

In closing I would like to ask for a few things. Mom and Dad (and anyone else who reads this and would like to participate), could you send me some of your experiences from you mission? I would really love to read them!

Love and Miss you all tons!

Yo que sé vive mi Señor!

Con MUCHO Amor,

Elder Joyner! :)

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