Swinging Through Life: Prestos, todos prestos!

Hola Hola Hola!!!

¿¡Can you believe it?! I am already a month into my mission!¡ And what a LONG but BEAUTIFUL month it has been! I´m just going to come out and say it. This week was really really hard. BUT it is over and I think my last week and a half here at the CCM is going to be wonderful!

So this last week here in Mexico City they have had this thing called a "fairia" which is essentially a fair. But the Mexicans are partiers and like their parties to last ALL night long! Their favorite way to celebrate is with fireworks which we hear all day-always. This week was special with the fiar because we get to hear them all NIGHT too! Our casa is right next to the wall that divides us from the rest of the city and it literally sounds like cannons are exploding on top of our house. They have a firework "finale" every 30 mins in the night. Which means every night we are awoken every 30 mins to the sound of cannons going off above are heads for about 5 mins. Last night was the first night I slept through all of them..which means I am getting to be a pretty heavy sleeper! There have been some pretty sleepy missionaries here at the CCM this last week! Thankfully the fair ends friday! We are all excited for semi quiet nights! Day of the Dead is also coming up soon though...which should be fun! We are hoping they bring some of these bottlerockets INSIDE the CCM!

Two difficult events happened this week that really humbled us. The first was..well Ill give you some background about it first. Our teacher plays one of our investigators that we have been teaching for three weeks now. We all thought it was going great...he is pretty easy to teach. Then our other teacher showed us a video of the investigator talking about us. He doesnt speak hardly any english but made the video in english for us to make sure we really understood. Esesntially it was him talking about how his lessons were terrible bala bla bla with phrases inserted like "worst missionaries ever" "horrible lessons" "they dont care about me or their message". I dont think he meant for it to be as harsh as it was but since his english is so rough...it came out harsh! It was towards our whole district and when it was over...you could just feel the pain and utter discouragement in the room. We thought we had been doing good! Long story short everyone cried for awhile and was ready to just go home. Fast forward a bit and the teacher who made the video came and tried to smooth over what happened. I guess we were supposed to see it the first week to humble us or something. And it wasnt supposed to be that harsh and was just supposed to encourage us a bit. He felt really bad...especially since most everyone was crying. He tried to explain he really didnt feel that way but his boss made everyone make a encouraging viedo for ther missionaries. Its an interesting way of encouraging us.....but its all over now!

We have had some huge thunderstorms this week! So much lightning we were all trapped in the comedor again. Thats always fun! We stand on the tables and sing "the wise man built his house about a rock". We have also decided as a district its time to leave english behind. So any time someone says a english word they have to drink a glass of horchata mixed with hot sauce-the ultimate punishment.

I had my district write happy birthday letters to Emily. Some of the elders got really into it. One is even writing a song for her as I type!

I saw a pretty bis spider in the bathroom the other day and told my teacher about it. He was horrified that I did not kill it and told me that it is going to grow bigger! And there are a lot of fatal spiders here that people die from all the time! He imitated one biting me, me having a seizure of sorts and then dying "10 mins later". Something I wish I was aware of before. We are all even more terrified now of the spiders (is that even possible?). Last night someone woke us up claiming to have seen one and we all went around screaming and jumping on everything. It was probably amusing to watch- but we really need to start sleeping through the night!

So in a nutshell this week had lots of tears, lots of bonding time, lots of singing in the rain, lots of screaming and lots of learning and growing experiences! I am super EXCITED to get to Chile in just 11 days!

I will be sad to leave my district though. They are the best! I love all of them to death!! My companion is awesome! She is so much fun and we have become such great friends! She sings with me all day long and loves chocolate and food even more than I do!! She also loves doing my hair which is great....since thats like my least favorite thing in the world! Oh, I dont think I ever mentioned it but she is cooming to concepcion too! And her spanish has skyrocketed this week which is awesome!! Lessons are so much easier when Im not the only one talking!

Mom- can you forward me some mission emails every week?. I want to read Carli Stones...you can find them on her blog. Just look up hermana carli stone on google. Also I havent gotten one of Kianas emails in awhile. And Alissa Mitchells emails...you can find those on her blog (google "prancing moose blog") also I think I have her address wrong. So while on her blog find the right one please. And Kyle Tracys emails...and theres more but I cant remember right now.

OH! Also my leg is totally fine! Swelling is gone and you cant even see where it bit me!

So to end with my quote for the week..

"We must learn to become creators of circumstances and not creatures of them."- Ballard

I hope everyone has a great week! Listen to some music for me!

LOVE and miss you ALL!

Love- your favorite missionary,

Hermana Orchard

pictures:

me and all my study materials that I love!!

My best friend- my spanish hymn book. :)