hola familia (this keyboard has some technical issues--as always--so i apologize) first of all, angie and caden you are possibly my heroes. thank you so much for the package111 (1=excl. mark) i can't begin to tell how much i loved the pictures, especially11 some will be coming your way soon... i wish i could hug you. muchisimas gracias. also, i got a valentine from ella (i understand the postage delay :) ) and loved that as well.
oh mi familia... all right, so i don't have much time and the inability to capitalize any letters right now is extremely frustrating, so i will try to move fast. i am down to my final two weeks. loco. i'm actually starting to get a little nostalgic about the prospect of leaving my district and my teachers...if you only knew how great they were. i know i'm definitely not pro at spanish yet, but i feel like i'm collecting more of the building blocks each day to be able to say what i want with relative ease. listening to a native spanish speaker, however, is a different story entirely. this past saturday night when we taught an "investigator" (volunteer) at the trc, she was from honduras and i can tell you that i have never strained my ears more in my life. first of all, my teacher had to split up hna. graham and me because they didn't have enough investigators, so i had to teach with two of our elders (unique experience...a little unorthodox...lots of fun). anywho, we had this lady from honduras named mathilde and she sure had the ability to talk in such a way that i was certain it was just one long word. but i was able to catch the gist of most of what she was saying and reply back to her at least satisfactorily (i think...). luckily for me i have one of those faces that says more than my words do. so a lot of the time was spent intently staring at her, hoping my eyes would magically communicate my thoughts. i think it worked :). but that was a great experience and it got me excited for the field. i'm sure i'm going to be force fed a lot of humble pie when i get there and realize i'm not as proficient as i'd like to think...but i look forward to it.
we've had a really busy week. we got another new district, this time with 4 new hermanas, so we are now officially the "older" hermanas. we've been able to impart of our vast 7-week knowledge and i feel pretty proud of that. on fast sunday almost all of the sisters got up to bear their testimonies (myself included). i was proud of the new hermanas. they don't know much spanish yet but they got up anyway. it's pretty cool how you don't necessarily have to understand the words to understand the meaning. as one of our teachers put it yesterday, "does the spirit know spanish? he does. a lot better than you do." (this wasn't a slam against us, he was just making a point about the power of the spirit in testifying truths despite language barriers. good point, no?) oh mi bondad...there is always so much to say and so little time (and too many frustrating keyboards in my life).
we've learned a lot about panama in the last week because one of our sub teachers served there. he says we can basically get any food we want and that rarely do you get sick if ever. i have heard so many different things, so i'm not sure what to believe, but i guess i'll find out in two weeks1 here are a few things that everyone says: 1. it's beautiful 2. it's hot and 100% humid (see ya, straightener) 3. the people are wonderful 4. i am going to love it. that's good enough for me. weird to think i only get to email you one more time before i leave. loco.
to all of you who have send me letters, emails, pictures (thank you jamie :) ) and the like, i can't begin to say thank you enough. i love hearing from all of you. i'm tyring to catch up with my correspondence but i think i'll forever be behind. but know that i love you with all my little corazon and i'm thinking about you (when i am permitted :) ). i should be getting my travel plans this week and i am pumped1 expect a letter in the mail...
love and thanks again,
hermana brewster :)
