CCM #2

TREVOR THE ASIAN!!!!!!!!!! WOWO!!!!! DID ANYONE SEE THAT ONE COMING?!?!?!?! CRAZY!!!!! CRAZY!!!!!!!! CRAZY HARD LANGUAGE!!!!!! dude, trev. you´re going to ROCK man!!!! spanish is hard..but its nothing compared to japanese!!! haha. all that studying for ib will pay off i think!! youre soooo cool!!!!! you're going to be able to speak japanese!!!!!!!! thats super good that steve gave you that rosetta stone though. i heard those things are the best. im soo sooo pumped for you. i was sitting here reading my emails with a room of missionaries and i yelled, ´WHAT?!?!´ and then ¨my brother got called to JAPAN!!!!!!!!!!!´ sooo stoked for you man!!! you are seriously going to rock it.

i am sooo sooo soooo stoked for michaela to come!!!!!!!!!! ive been telling everyone, ´my cousins coming in two days!!!!!´one of the elders was like, ´does she play soccer too?´ haha i said shes a really good piano player. :) its nuts cuz theres only like 20 people at the ccm right now! 2 of the 4 american districts left on sunday, and all of the latinos(they only stay for two weeks so ill go through 3 groups of them)! i was muy triste. the latinos woke me up at 4 in the morning and we sang ´God be with you til we meet again´in espanol, and i prayed for them in spanish. theyre the best. theyll all find me on ´face´(thats what they call facebook haha) cuz i wrote them all notes in their journals(more like drew them with my colorful pens and wrote in broken spanish) ha. ya so its a party being so empty here. according to hermana cardon(presidents wife) theres about 75 latinos coming, 4 latinas, 7 american hermanas y 9 american elders. should be fun! cant wait for another hermana black!!!

i didnt realize how hard it would be to work hard as a missionary. theres not people there all the time telling me what i need to do all the time. its a lot of self discipline to study for multiple hours a day on your own. im trying to learn how to get rid of my will and accept Gods. the district also makes it hard too, because they become some of your really good friends because your with them all day every day! so if one person comes off focus, then everyone does. on sunday we were all particularly roudy and finally one of the elders stood up and said, ´i have a spiritual thought´and he read a quote from preach my gospel and a scripture about working hard and how God will bless you with power. i have definitely re-commited to putting my best effort out there and stop letting myself lag because other people are. whats cool(trevor) is that we all have so much more respect for that guy now. hes always worked so hard and his spanish has improved a ton(he´ll bring flashcards to meals even). we all want to be the best missionaries, so when youre an example even if it seems intimidating people will thank you for being so so obedient all the time. i know i have definitely thanked that elder.  

cool thought in the temple today was that scripture ´the last shall be first and the first last etc´. i sat on the back row so that i would be the last one into the celestial room, because im trying to be better at serving others and being selfless(last time i was first in there). anyways, the way it worked out, they were taking the people on the back row first this time, so i ended up being first again! it made me realize that when you do what your supposed to and always put God first, things will actually work out better for you. siempre. always. it may not seem like when we get rid of our will and put God first that its better for us. but he´s way smarter than us. he´ll pay us back 500%. at least. the scriptures are dang powerful. i watched a talk from elder holland on sunday and he said that when you open the book of mormon its like the spirit oozes of the pages. (i dont think he used that exact wording, but that the imagery i got:)) ha anyways. its so true. the book of mormons powerful. i just get to tell people to read it! its the proof that everythings true!!

much love,

hermana black.