6 weeks down

Hola!

It's been a crazy week it feels like. Last Thursday my companions and I went and did cealings for the first time ever. It was definitely one of my favorite experiences in the temple. The spirit was so strong. We didn't get to go to the temple this week though :( i'll get to that later.

We got a new district in our zone this week. They are really nice Elders. No hermanas though! Sad.. maybe next week. I took them on a tour and they seemed really excited, but I could sense that it was about to set in on how long they're actually going to be here. I felt bad, i've been there. They all got up in sacrement on sunday and cried through their whole testimonies. They'll be fine.

This week has been really frusterating with the language! I'm losing my confidence.. hopefully it'll come back so i wont be in trouble when I get to arizona! 'Don't demand things of yourself that are unreasonable, but demand of yourself improvement.' I just keep telling myself that. I think what's been bothering me is I met with my zone resource teacher and I asked him to be honest about how he thinks i'm doing, he said that I'm about in the middle.. about where most missionaries are. I hate being average. It's driving me nuts. Hopefully I can pick it up this week.

I have been so exhausted this week. We were in 'TALL' and I was trying to repeat the sentence in spanish back from what was coming up on the screen and I kept falling asleep in the middle of the sentence. It was terrible. My back has about a million knots in it i'm pretty sure. I've been in a lot of pain this week with my back. It's more annoying than painful though.

I interviewed the sisters in my zone on saturday before we met with the branch president on sunday. I said a little prayer that the sisters would be open and honest about what their feeling and how i could help them. Be careful what you pray for. I found out some things that were very eye opening. We are taking care of it though and it makes me feel good that they feel comfortable telling me things, so it was a good thing.

Sunday number 6, check! We had mission conference with the whole mtc because it was fast sunday. We fasted for a good 26 hours. I was fine without food but i was soooooooooo dehydrated. It was pretty bad because I got up the next day for my workout class in the morning and I didn't feel good at all. It's hard to keep hydrated here. I bore my testimony in sacrement in spanish for the first time! I was pretty excited. I started out saying, 'yo se mi espanol es mui mal, pero tengo un testimonio asi ustedes tambienuhhhhhh' I know my spanish is pretty bad, but i have a testimony like you guys tooowahhh! We watched 'mountain of the lord' for films. that was pretty fun learning about the salt lake temple. It's crazy what they went through to build that.

Monday I talked to a guy about meeting with sam, he ran into me in the hall and said, hey i just got off the phone with your dad! He said your brother is going to come see you. Someone needs to call the mtc back and say exactly what time you will actually be at the mtc so he can inform security. He didn't say anything to me about temple square though. So yeah, dad or someone, will you call and work out the details? I can go talk to him again, but i don't know what time you guys are planning on coming for sure so it'd be easier if you just called porfavor :)

At the devotional on tuesday we had the first counselor of the presiding bishopric come talk to us. His wife spoke first and said 'after you have partaken of the tree of life, don't complain about the taste.' I really like that because we ask for all these blessings from god, like a job or being on a mission and then we say, oh the work load is too much or something like that.

Brother edgley talked to us about never being intimitated by anyone on your mission because you have the authority of god on your side. I related this to my district after and taught that we should also never be intimidated about the language. Heavenly father taught us spanish in the prelife, we are just being reminded so we shouldn't be intimidated. I was mostly talking to myself.

Mother, you have motherly instincts like i've never heard of before. You said, i've been thinking about you a lot today, i hope you're ok. Welll.. I woke up yesterday not feeling the best, as usual. But i kept going and tried to brush it off. I was getting frustrated with the language and just not having a very good day. We went in to teach trino, one of our investigators who is really one of our teachers and we were teaching about the law of chasity and the word of wisdom. Right in the middle of it, within 5 seconds my body felt like it was 1000 degrees. My ears felt like they were on fire and i was dizy and nausiated. Without even noticing or controling myself, tears started coming out of my face! I literally couldn't stop. The lesson kept going though and I didn't know what to do. I thought about making it seem like i was just feeling the spirit, but what was i going to do? cry while saying, 'you can't have sexual relationships before marriage?' finally i looked at hma larson and said, you need to end this lesson please, like.. now. I swear like an eternity later they said the prayer. I thought I wasn't going to make it. It was a miracle that i didn't pass out. We said amen and i got up and said to my poor/awkward teacher, 'i'm really sorry, i just really REAlly don't feel good. I went in the bathroom and splashed some cold water on my face and came out right when my whole district was taking a water brake. They were all like.. what the?? What happened in the lesson? Lets just say I was sleeping for most of the day and this morning. I have had a fever that just keeps coming and going. I'm not really sure what's wrong with me. I might get a blessing tonight though if i'm still not feeling well. It's a good thing today is p-day. I felt bad for my companions though, we didn't get to go to the temple this morning. Anyway... all will be well.

Thank you for all your letters! It's the best when I get letters! Keep writing! Love you all!

Love, Hma Cottrell