Travel Plans

So my travel plans have officially arrived! We (Hermana H., myself, and our advanced Spanish Hermana), fly out from SLC at 7am on the 9th! We have a layover in Pheonix and then are flying strait in to Mexico. I can't believe how fast time has gone. I feel as though I'm kind of ready to go out into the field, but that I could happily stay here for another week or two!

This week has been a lot of fun! To start the week off, I gave my very first talk in Spanish. The topic was on the Book of Mormon, and I was informed about 5 minutes before I was to give it. Luckily they always give us a warning about the topic so we can prepare during the week before hand. I felt as though I kind of stumbled through it, but for the most part it wasn't too bad! And apparently I didn't speak with too much of a French acccent, so that was pretty encouraging to hear :D

On monday night Hermana H. and I held a YSA Family Home Evening activity for our Investigator C. We had the focus on the Holy Ghost. So naturally the activity involved a blindfolded obstacle course with one person guiding you through directions only. This was interesting as we all still don't quite understand directions in Spanish, and were a little lost! But we also had everyone not leading the blindfolded person making a rukus. When it came time for our investigator to go through, we had to tell him that he needed to close his eyes, but couldn't remember how to in Spanish! (We had kind of cheated with everyone else and just said it in Spanglish). One of the Elders blurted out "Sacan sus ojos!", thinking it was the right direction, but really that translates as "Take out your eyes!" Needless to say, we all laughed pretty good for a few minutes, and then just mimed the directions to our Investigator.

On Tuesday night we had Elder Russell M. Nelson and his wife come to speak to us. I'm starting to get used to this whole Tuesday night devotional idea, I wouldn't mind it becoming a regular part of my life! Anyways, he spoke a lot on our purpose as missionaries. His wife spoke a fair bit about desperation being an effective motivator, but I like to translate that idea more so as our innermost desires, needs and goals. I feel as though when we get to the point of desperation in our lives, we do have a very intense focus on a specific thing, but it also reaches a point of being frantic. So, in one of my favourite quotes from the night, where she said "Desperately ask, Desperately seek, and desperately knock. Then and only then will we see the way to follow with exactness" Please insert "With your innermost desire" for "Desperately".
I also enjoyed when Elder Nelson compared us all to a car. He said that we are like a car battery, and when we start to feel drained or whatever it may be, "Your batteries will be recharged best when you are on the road; Serving, teaching and loving."

One other really entertaining part of our week (being a missionary changes your idea of entertainment I guess) was to do with one of Buck's ducklings. He had wandered off and some missionaries found him in the middle of the street. So, they took him back to their apartment and put him in the tub with a bit of water for the night. Then, returned him to the pond area in the morning with hopes he would be reunited with his mother. In the process they dubbed him Gonzo. Hermana H. and I stumbled across him all alone again, so we lead him back to the pond... only to discover that only the male mallards were there. So a cleaning crew worker took him to find his mother while we went to study. We later came across a group of missionaries throwing stuff at Gonzo because he was in the pond by himself and they felt that they needed to motivate him to get out? We put an end to that pretty quickly. Anyway, we haven't seen Gonzo for a few days, so either he found his family or he's on to better things. It made for an interesting story in our week :) 




Things with our investigator I. were incredible this week. She only came to two of the appointments, and all we really were able to talk much about with her was about Faith and Joseph Smith. I love that we are constantly encouraged to teach people and not lessons, because our entire conversation both times was directed by the Spirit. And I feel as though part of why I loved it so much, was because we could see her share her experiences and come to further realize what exactly the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has. Because we really do have so much. Knowing that God is a loving Heavenly Father and who knows each of us individually and wants so much for us. That He really is there and listening, and that we matter to Him. Even just that means everything to me. And then He went even further and created this plan so that we could return to live with Him again, by simply living the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What more do we need when we have Him on our side?

Hermana Crawford

 Elder Nelson

PS  check out this link to some of Elder Nelsons most recent talks
https://www.lds.org/church/leader/russell-m-nelson

Tres Semanas

Hola Everyone!

I officially hit my three week mark this past wednesday. That means I'm technically more then half way through my first transfer... which is crazy to believe!! One thing really nice about this fact though, is in conversations with spanish speakers. When ever I words "semana" and "CCM'. I knew the answer was tres semanas, because I had been here for three, and had three weeks left, so there was no other possible answer! My spanish continues to improve a lot though, and I am growing to understand more and more.

This week started off with quite the surprise. We attended our usual Sunday evening devotional. Everyone is bussed over to main campus, were we meet in the main auditorium for a guest speaker, and then divide to watch a gospel related video of choice. This time, they opened as usual, except to say that we were to watch Elder Bednar's Character of Christ video (Sorry, it's an MTC video from christmas morning two years ago. It's an amazing talk, and he does a HILARIOUS impression of the cookie monster related to the natural man, but it's only available to be seen at the MTC). We were then told that we were to remain seated for special instruction. 

When they said that, I immediately started thinking of what that could possible mean. And near the end of the video, I saw ushers start to move around some microphones within the auditorium. Almost as soon as the video ended, everyone decided to not stay seated for the special instructions, but to stand because a General Authority had entered the room. If you haven't guessed by now, Elder Bednar decided to come and do a Q&A with the MTC :) I knew what was going on as soon as they started to move around the microphones because he had just done the same with us a few months back. Many good questions were asked, and many wonderful answers were given, some of my favourite are:

In respect to scriptures and personal revelation, the scriptures are a "pre-recoridng of the voice of the Lord, that we don't hear in our ears but we feel in our hearts, and it becomes as a compass that directs us to His voice."

That repentance really has 4 R's "Recognize, Remorse, Restitution, REDEEMER. It isn't repentance unless it's focused on Christ."

And the final one really hit me, in regards to spiritual gifts. We "never receive them because we want to, but because God trusts us to be in the right place at the right time so that it goes through us to bless someone else."

I really felt that apply to me this week as we began meeting with our TRC investigator, a sweet girl named Ive. who has committed to be baptized on Junio 20. She has so many questions, and I felt so very inadequate with my spanish, even though she was willing to translate on occasion. I began to realize that I didn't need to learn spanish so that I know Spanish, that's not why I'm here. I'm here so that I can learn how to communicate the plain and simple truths that is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has truly been restores in it's fullness on the earth today. 

Otherwise the week has been going pretty well. I found an Elder Crawford on west campus this week, which was pretty entertaining. I keep teasing Hermana H. that I've gotten a new companion. :P I love her though, and honestly couldn't have asked for a better companion. We have a lot of learning and growing to do, but we are both committed to do so. And for any future/past missionaries reading this, Companionship Inventory is a wonderful thing :) Oh! we also discovered that we are the only missionaries in the entire Utah MTC campus with calls to Hermosillo at the moment. So it looks like it's us two and whoever is at the Mexico CCM!

I hope all is well

Hermana Crawford

ps: check out the link below for more about Elder Bednar and some of his talks.

https://www.lds.org/church/leader/david-a-bednar

And the melting begins.....

Hola everyone!

This week went by so fast, I can hardly believe it's emailing time again already! I hope next week goes a little slower, just so I feel like I've actually spent some time in the CCM!
It's already pretty warm here, we were at about 25C and sunny all day! I still haven't figured out how to convert into Fahrenheit, but someone tried to explain something along the lines of double and add 30? Oh well, I just know it's hot! In Hermosillo though, it's already high 30s/low 40s so I guess this will potentially help me to adjust better? But I may just be a puddle by the time I come home. 

I loved being able to call home and talk to everyone on Mother's Day! It was a little emotional (A leader in the room just gave me an entire tissue box), but all in all it was nice. I honestly haven't really felt "trunky" since coming out. But I do feel pretty excited when I get to see a familiar face. It's nice having Elder Fitz. over here at West, and I ran into Elder O. today at the main campus. I can't wait for Sister Smith to be out here though :D It's wonderful to see so many people from back home joining in the best cause in the world :)

This week has been amazing. We had a devotional on Tuesday night with Elder L.Tom Perry! I joined the MTC choir, so we got to sing Nearer My God to Thee. It was a very pretty rendition with a nice high soprano part :) But the experience was amazing, I think I could get used to having Tuesday night Devotionals! 
The main focus was on companionship, how it's important and how without unity you aren't going to be able to accomplish much. He gave us a list of 5 essential principles as we are preparing to teach.

 They are:

1. Ask, Seek and Knock Spiritually

2. Teach from the Scriptures
3. Teach by the Spirit
4. Help the Learner to assume responsibility
5. NEVER end your teaching session without bearing your testimony of Jesus Christ.

And then he concluded with the thought that "The responsibility is now fallen to us, may we not faulter."

We also got a new district in our zone this week. 6 elders who are all going to be serving in Mexico City West! They're all very excited to be here, and eager to learn Spanish! The district that was in our Zone when we reported though is flying out to Argentina Monday morning. It's a district with only 4 elders, but they have done a lot for our district through sharing their testimonies, and essentially becoming our CCM family. In total we have 3 districts in our Zone, and we use the bottom two apartments in a building for our classrooms. We have the living room of one apartment. The departing district has the living room of the neighbouring apartment, and then the new district is using a bedroom in the other apartment. It's a little confining to say the least, but it works and I really have grown to love our makeshift campus!

After going to the temple today, most of our Zone went over to the main campus for lunch. There we were told that we essential have the "Missionary Garden of Eden", and as Hermana H. and I were walking to our classroom apartment, we realized how true that is! Out by our creek/fountain is a small grassy area with trees, benches, picnic tables, and lawn chairs. And it is usually filled with missionaries studying, teaching investigators, having class, or sometimes even just enjoying being outside for a few moments. We tend not to have many of those though, we were talking with our bus driver as he drove us back from the temple, and asked what he was going to do since he was almost off. He sat their for a second and said "I don't really know!" It was pretty entertaining for all of us to hear, as that just isn't really an aspect of our lives anymore. But I love it!

  (one view of the creek that runs through CCM)

I gave TALL a full try for 2 days work this week, and then spoke to my teachers about how little I felt I had learnt and comprehended, and they said that I could just do all of the workbook work and they felt that would be acceptable. I spend as much time as I possibly can doing that and studying! I find each day I actually just crave having more time to be able to further study deeper into the gospel and whatever ideas or questions I have. One of our teachers, Hermano D., had a big discussion with our district at the beginning of this week about properly asking questions in the gospel. He spoke to us about Faith as his current study topic, and how he was trying to understand it better. I know most people just think, well Alma 32:21, but that actually doesn't define faith, it just says what it is not, and what coincides with it! He further went in to encourage us to just think of questions, and that instead of using whatever answer it is that comes to mind, to actually ponder on it and study it out. Otherwise, it's like the Spirit is a full pitcher trying to poor into an upside down cup. As we turn to the scriptures, and really pray and seek to understand more, our cups turn upright and we are able to truly learn. In reality though, in this life, we can never have a perfect understanding of anything in this gospel. We can get the gist of everything, but we have a lifetime of learning to do! So, my challenge for all of you is to try that. You'll be surprised how incredibly eye opening it is!

[Alma 32:21 And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.]

Hermana H. and I taught our new investigator "Sam" the first discussion this week, and it was by far the most spiritual and best Spanish lesson we have ever had! It was incredible. I mean, I know our grammar was terrible, and I still was speaking a combination of three languages, but it's the first time we have ever gotten through so much of a lesson. I know the gift of tongues is real. How long have I been here? I never could have imagined that I would have learned so much in such a very short time.

I can't wait to see what the next 17 ish months hold!

Hermana Crawford

Check out this link to Elder Perry's bio:  https://www.lds.org/church/leader/l-tom-perry  and several of his latest Conference talks.

Duck Weather, Field Trips and Tri-lingual discussions

Hello everyone!

This past week has been pretty tough, but equally spiritually uplifting. Thank you everyone who has written me letters, I really appreciate them!

So since I last wrote, we had our first Sunday at the CCM. Since this was fast Sunday, it wasn't a typical Sunday. Generally we are to each prepare a 5 minute talk in Spanish, based off of a pre-determined topic. Tomorrow will be about the Holy Ghost. But since it was fast Sunday, we were aloud to bare our testimonies in English. Testimony meetings, personal prayer, and personal and companion study are all to be done in our native languages. No exceptions. I appreciate it though, because it allows an opportunity for more focus on spiritual growth as opposed to trying to speak the language.

We also have been teaching an investigator for the past week. We knew he was a CCM employee so that was a little comforting, knowing that our Spanish was not the only way this individual was to learn about the gospel. Hermana Hathaway and I are at a slight disadvantage to the other companionship as neither of us have ever studied any Spanish. In the other companionships, there is one who has studied previously, and at least have a basic understanding. But considering we really have only been here for a bit over a week, I know I have learned WAY more Spanish than I would have thought possible! Yet Spanish is also so similar to french that I keep confusing it in my head. During our lessons I was not speaking one, or two, but all three on a fairly regular basis. The Spirit was so strong though, and I realized that it really doesn't matter too much whether you are speaking clearly, you just need to be able to testify. Oh, and the surprise thing is that our supposed investigator is now our night teacher. That was an interesting discovery!

Tuesday was our trip to Vegas. We got up at 4 am, and were in Vegas basically all day. I have NEVER seen a palm tree before in my life! I was so excited when we landed, and the service missionary who picked us up started laughing at me and asked how I knew what it was then!  He took us to the consulate on the outskirts of Vegas. There was a group of about 9 of us, one elder who will be reporting to the CCM in about 4 weeks, and two Hermanas who had to be temporarily reassigned as they were waitng for their Mexico visas. It all went well, if not a little long. We had to run a bit to catch our flight!  But I now have a 6 month visa that the church works to get extended.

Sadly we did NOT make it back in time for devotional, where Elder Holland spoke. We asked the driver on the way back from the airport who the speaker was. Knowing full well we would be missing it, we were all a little depressed to learn he would be there. One of the Elders immediately said "Just drive off the cliff." It was pretty entertaining. All in all, it was fun to have a field trip though!

So I know that a lot of people have been watching the situation in Ukraine very closely, and it does seem that they won't be sending any more missionaries there. I was extremely surprised to see Elder Fitzmorris at West campus a few days ago, only to learn that all of the Ukraine bound missionaries in the CCM have been reassigned to Peru. It's kind of nice to see a face from home around campus though!

One of the new things they have been really been pushing for us to use to learn Spanish is this computer program called TALL. I think it will take me a little getting used to, as I greatly prefer to just be studying from my books. Our time to be able to just personally sit and study the language is very limited. Our time is extremely structured, even to the point of only being aloud to work on certain aspects and purposes of the language at certain times. Because I have previously learned and studied a language it's taking me a bit of time to adjust to this new method, but I know that it is an inspired method, so I'll just keep getting to work. It is truly amazing how much I have learned already though.

The majority of this week has been pretty rainy- all duck weather! I don't know if I mentioned in my previous letter, but when I landed here, EVERYTHING is already green. The trees are all fully leafy, the grass was all green, and the flowers were everywhere. So in general I'm finding it to be pretty warm, especially coming from back home. But I guess it'll just help me to transition better to weather in Mexico.

I love West Campus though, we have so many more physical freedoms than those at the main campus. Even if our food selection is much smaller. (Hermana H. and I went there for lunch after the temple today and were amazed! There's soooo much!) We especially enjoy the creek/fountain over near our classrooms. We have some ducks who frequent them, whom my companion has named Buck and Norman. We've been getting along great. She's been such a trooper with the massive blisters she managed to get on her feet. She also has a great sense of humour, so we understand each other. Well, more so she puts up with my puns. But we've had some pretty good laughs and I feel we have come to a good understanding of one another.

Till next time,

Hermana Crawford

Con Fe En Dios‏

Hola!

I'm so excited to finally be here. The flights down only had a bit of turbulence, and people were fairly helpful with any and all questions I had! Ana was there waiting for me when I got to the airport, and Jane and Piper were along shortly afterwards. They were very sweet and took good care of me on my last day :) It's so much warmer down here! Everything is green already, and the MTC has beautiful gardens

everywhere! I am off in the Wayview/Raintree campus, which is purely Spanish and used to be part of BYU. I did run into to Elder Fitzy on my first day, but I doubt I'll see anyone else really as we rarely go over. We actually take a bus to get to the campus and to the temple.

It's actually a bit of a pop-up campus, with portable-like buildings for the cafeteria and the bookstore. Our classrooms are all in the Raintree part of campus. We actually have our classroom in the bottom floor living room of an old residence. But it's beautiful, and we get a lot more freedom then at the main campus. We have an artificial creek in the center of our classrooms. We also are aloud to go to Brigham's landing to Burger Supreme and to go to Jamba Juice. (I've never heard of either before...)

My companion is a really sweet and witty girl from Seattle. She is a semester away from graduating her public health program at BYU-I. Neither of us know any Spanish to start, so we're starting at basically the same level.  We've been getting along pretty great :) She was nice enough to take the top bunk, and our personalities seem to be a good mesh. We are trying to speak as much Spanish as we can with each other, but so far this basically consists of Hola, Si, Como esta usted, Gracias, Es veridad... and just whatever else we've managed to pick up conversationally. Our teachers are all very patient and understanding, but sometimes I can't help but feel a bit overwhelmed with how very much I have to learn. I know everyone said that french would help me, but so far it's just managed to confuse me more :P A lot of the words are fairly similar so I get confused about which language I actually am speaking! We taught our first investigator last night, and I managed to include all three languages. So one of my goals is to get it down to two...

Other than feeling overwhelmed with the magnitude of it all, I love the language already. If you read the title, it is fairly similar to the word confidence. Yet it actually means With Faith In God. Just a little fact for you... but really, now that it's starting to make more sense to me, I am beginning to really appreciate it. It's just hard, because I have a desire to share the gospel with others, and all that I have studied and learned through out my life. But now I have this simple barrier that until I am able to be more fluent, I feel as though I won't be able to communicate as effectively. I am also grateful for this as it forces me to rely more on the Spirit, as we are to simply teach with power and with authority, and not so much with fancy wording. But from growing up with so many books, I do love diction.

My district is so very easy going. We have 4 Elders and 4 Hermanas in total. One is going to Tijuana, my companion and I to Hermosillo, and the rest to Guadalaraja. Sister T. in the other companionship is from Calgary, and we are the only two Canadians of the 45 who reported on Wednesday.

Today has been a pretty productive p-day. We have service project (cleaning) at 6:15-7:30, and we also got to go to the Provo temple :) It really is beautiful in there! But Saturdays are my p-days from now on, which is kind of cool because we basically get a weekend! 

Hermana Crawford

Note: P-Day is short for preparation day, which is when Hermana Crawford can catch up on letters, laundry, grocery and personal shopping and attend the Provo temple shown above.