It's a Gringa! (March 18, 2013)

Hello All,

I know I say this every week, but I literally have like, NO TIME to write this week!

Just a quick update on my new companionship, since that is the biggest news from this week!

We went to training meeting on Tuesday (which was both Hermana Fajardo and I´s 6-month mark in the mission) and were told by the assistants that indeed their intention was for our "hija" to have two "moms", so I am officially a trainer!  We got three new sisters and one elder.  They are all "gringos," but with advanced Spanish skills, which is why we ended up with this emergency cambio - there was some kind of a miscommunication between the mission office and the MTC, because we were expecting them in the cambio on April 8, but they are advanced and only had two weeks in the MTC instead of six.  Anyway, the assistants told us that when President did cambios on the 25th, he didn´t know that these missionaries were coming, but that he felt inspired to do cambios the way he did because we needed to be available to train THESE missionaries specifically.

Our "hija" is named Hermana Holland.  She recently turned 21 and is from Iowa, but has been studying English at BYU the past three years. Her mom is from Bolivia and she has many other relatives from South American countries, but they are all in the States now and she and her family attend a Spanish branch in her hometown.  Despite her Spanish background, she´s having a little bit of a hard time understanding Chileans - but that´s to be expected because Chileans speak their very own version of Spanish!  Anyway, Hermana Holland is awesome.  And she is realted to Elder Holland, but very, very distantly, for those of you who were wondering.  ;)

Because they kept telling us in the MTC that we could expect to be training for the majority of our mission, I have often thought to myself, "When I am a trainer, my trainee and I will do this...."  Bah.  Turns out being a trainer is like super hard.  There´s all these things that Hermana Fajardo and I do like second-nature now as missionaries and as a companionship that our "hija" has no idea about.  To add to the fact that she´s in a foreign country trying to speak a different version of a language she was only fairly familiar with, she only had 12 DAYS in the MTC to learn how to be a missionary.  I know I didn´t particularly love my time in the MTC, but I am confident that 12 days would not have been enough for me to learn anything about being a missionary.  I don´t even think I could find my way around without just following Hermana Frandsen after 12 days in the MTC, honestly!  But Hermana Holland is doing a really great job, despite the short training period.  But there is still a lot to learn when you get to the field, no matter how long you were in the MTC.  I really didn´t realize until Hermana Holland came how very far I had come as a missionary.  I can´t even imagine how hard it was for Hermana Bowns to train me - I was a wreck when I showed up here!

I really have to go now, my time is up!  But I do have to say that being a trainer has made me really grateful for my experience as a missionary.  I have had the opportunity this week to reflect on my experiences and the things that I have learned and the ways that I have grown and changed since I left home six months ago.  And I have never been more grateful for my mission.  It´s still hard every day and I still have SO FAR to go in becoming the missionary and the person that I should be, but I am really just so glad to have this opportunity to grow. I didn´t fully realize that before.

Your commitment this week:  Read Alma 34.  I read it in preparation for teaching one of our investigators and I loved it.  I´m sure you will too!

Lovelovelove you all!

Herman