Travel to Ecuador

Hermana Blazzard traveled to Ecuador from the MTC this past Monday. She was able to give us a brief call on Monday morning while she was at the Salt Lake City airport and sounded great. She left Salt Lake City and traveled to Dallas and then on to Miami and then to Guayaquil, Ecuador. This took all day starting at 4 a.m. at the MTC and ending up at 10:00 p.m. in Ecuador.

Travel To Mission

She wrote a quick email once at the mission home to let us know that she arrived seemingly without incident. The hermanas in her group stayed at the local sisters' apartment and then they moved their belongings to the housing provided across from the Guayaquil Ecuador Temple. The slept there that night and did a session the next morning and then they were to meet their trainers and travel to their assigned areas/sectors.

She reports that it is not too hot but very humid and that the mission president and his wife are very nice and friendly. She is ready to work!

Last week in the CCM!

Not actually, the MTC is a pretty chill place, but I just wanted to start my post off with more enthusiasm.

First off, I almost ended up going to the fattest city in America.  That's right, McAllen Texas.  I was checking my missionary portal earlier this week, and McAllen was listed as my mission instead of Ecuador.  I set off a bomb as I got all the missionaries going to Ecuador to check their portals.  Everyone got reassigned to various places in the states. However, a few days later, most of us received our visas and our missions switched back. Entonces, I'm not actually going to Tayhas. Ecuador here I come!

I finally broke the girls 3-pointer record here.  I've been trying for weeks.  The previous record was eight and I got ten...still pretty pathetic considering the guys record is 22.  But, the gym is closed now so I don't have time to try to break that one...bummer;)

The gym is closed because we have a special devotional happening this Sunday.  The new mission presidents arrived this week, so that means all 15 general authorities will be here on Sunday.  I'm sooooooooo pumped!  It's going to be exciting!  Having the new mission presidents here has been fun as well.  My district got to talk with some mission presidents and their wives yesterday.  One was going to serve in Colombia and the other one was headed to Peru.  They were so kind and sweet and hilarious.  They were helping the elders roast our teacher who served in Argentina.  Argentines pronounces double l's like the "sh" sound.  For example, "silla" would sound more like "sisha."  I was dying. The conversation was so loud and irreverent I loved it. Then at the end one of the mission presidents was like "Let's all go to Cafe Rio!" (But in spanish) I died again.  Literally I was crying laughing because of the timing and just the way he said it.  And I think he just said it because it's the only hispanic thing here he recognized. Ugh, you had to be there I guess.

There's been many many many times of laughter here at the CCM.  My district is hilarious and I'm going to miss them so much.  Lots of goodbyes are going to be happening tomorrow:(  Yuck. Goodbyes. Crying.  No me gusta folks.

My time here at the MTC has had its ups and downs, but overall I'm grateful for the time I got to spend here. 2 Nephi 4:16-35 kind of sums up my experience. It's about how Nephi was sorrowful because of his iniquities, he wrote, "my heart groaneth because of my sins."  In the beginning of my time here, I was always down on myself because I felt like I was always falling short and not doing enough. I was hyper-aware of my weaknesses and it slowed down my progress.  However, in this chapter Nephi then writes about how he will always trust in the Lord, because he remembers how much God has blessed him.  I remembered that as long as I'm trying my best and doing my part, God will make up the rest.  God loves us and wants us to turn to Him and ask Him for help. Verse 35 says, "yeah, I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh.  Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee; yeah, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my righteousness..."

Verse 28 is also one of my favorites - "Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin.  Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul."

The Gospel is here to bring us joy! God's plan is a plan of happiness! We can't get distracted by our flaws, we just need to focus on the bigger picture. God is always there to help us.

Love you all!

Hna. Blazzard

The departing hermanas from last week!

My favorite hermanas ever!!!

District pic with our teacher, Hermana Christensen

District pic with our teacher, Hermana Christensen

My cousin Amber (Ceptra Stratford)! She's going to Bulgaria!

Spanish Rapping and Rail Slamming

Hola Mis Amigos!

This week was same old same old.  Wake up, study, go to class, study, eat, go to class again, study, go to bed.  I'm getting a bit stir-crazy, pero esta bien. Only one week left! My companion and I are doing all that we can to keep ourselves entertained.  Yesterday, I made my Hna Hales guide me from our dorm to our classroom on the sixth floor while I kept my eyes closed.  Apparently people gave us some weird looks....but my eyes were closed so no me importa.  I heard some missionaries say, "Oh they must be doing a Holy Ghost exercise or something." Haha yeah sure.
My teacher Hermana Christensen rapped for some of the districts the other day. The entire rap was in Spanish. I could barely understand, but it still sounded pretty cool. Maybe one day I'll be as cool as her and be able to do that.  So far I can only only do the encarnación song from Nacho Libre.
Random story time. On Tuesday mornings, one of our jobs is to clean one of the buildings. Well, I was super tired so I thought sprinting to the building would wake me up. I challenged the other Hermanas to a race and took off in a full high knee sprint. I decided to cut one of the corners when all of a sudden I slammed into a railing. Descanso en paz to my hips. Maybe it was just a lesson I needed to learn: In life, you shouldn't cut corners. Just kidding, there was no lesson, I just am blind and the railing was the same color as the sky. I was able to laugh through the pain though. The other hermanas fell to the ground laughing. So there we were, 6:30 in the a.m., rolling around laughing (and dying) outside on the ground of a desolate MTC. This is what my life has come to.  
The best part of this week was getting our travel plans yesterday! We leave next Monday, June 25th! I'm soooooo excited. Ecuador, here we come!

That's all for now, I hope you all have a great week!

- Hermana Blazzard

Alma 37:36-37

36  Yea, and cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.

37  Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.

Wow, Que Poderoso

Hola!

Quick explanation for the title. One of my teachers says this phrase: "Wow, que poderoso," all the time. If he's listening to our lesson and we manage to say a sentence correctly in Spanish, he'll say it. If someone bears their testimony in Spanish, he'll say it. If someone reads a scripture in Spanish, he'll say it.  It's always dramatic too. He'll roll back in his chair and put his hand over his heart and nod his head while he says it. We can all imitate it with extreme preciseness. We sometimes say it after less reverent phrases, but it's all out of love. 

This week we got to hear talks from Sheri Dew and Elder Gong! It was amazing! The most important thing I learned was that we each have our own unique orbit. We each have unique attributes that can help specific people. We should always be on the look out for those people that might need our help.  Each day, we should ask ourselves,"Where does the Lord need me today?" 

Our district got to host the new missionaries this week. Five hundred new missionaries reported this last Wednesday! It was fun, but also sad to see people say goodbye to their families. Lugging their suitcases up stairs and across campus was good fun too.  Our zone got three new districts as well.  We now have the biggest zone in the MTC!

It's been blazing hot this week. My companion and I have talked to some people from Ecuador, and they say it's much hotter there compared to here. Oh goodie. That's the first thing every single person we've talked to has said when we ask them about Ecuador. Stay tuned to find out if me and my ginger skin make it through or not. 

Ciao for now, Love you all!

-Hermana Blazzard

Pero, esta bien.

Pero, esta bien" has kind of become our district catch phrase. It means, "But, it's okay/good."  We say it after everything. For example, "The food wasn't very good today, pero esta bien."  "I'm exhausted, pero esta bien." "I think we told our investigator that God can forgive him of his fish, instead of his sins, pero esta bien."

Spanish is still coming along. My companion and I have set some new goals that should speed up our learning.  Another elder recommended a scripture that gave us a little motivation. Check out Judges 12:6 if ya have time. 

One night I stayed up late (yes, against the rules, pero esta bien), because I was studying Spanish, and I was sitting in the common area of our floor.  Our floor is made up of sisters from all around the world going everywhere in the world.  Well, apparently the Asian sisters have a party every night from like 10:30 to midnight and I can't believe I just found out.  While I was studying, a bunch of the Asian sisters all of a sudden came out of their rooms with bowls of noodles and chopsticks and all this other food and started putting it on the table. One even brought out a huge teapot and placed it down along with the huge assortment. Where did they even get one of those? Did they bring it? Where did all that other food come from? Do they in fact have a kitchen in their room?  They were all laughing and having so much fun.  They do that every. night.  I'm going to try to join one of these days.  I wonder if they'll accept my bag of mints as my contribution. 

The MTC is getting more and more crowded as we head into summer.  Next week, we are supposed to get 32 new missionaries in our zone! Crazy, pero esta bien. 

Another random story.  Last P-day, my companion and I were doing laundry. We were doing it later in the day, because that P-day was really busy since we had to prepare a lot of stuff that we had to do on Sunday.  Entonces, I was really tired and kind of out of it.  We were on our way out, and I was carrying my heavy bag of laundry, and all of a sudden this senior sister jumps in front of me and yells, "COOKIES?!?"  I dropped my laundry and slammed against the laundry machines because it scared the heeby jeebies out of me.  Just kidding, that was a little exaggerated, but she did kind of come from nowhere and it surprised my companion and I and we can't even remember if we answered or not.  I think I just said, "No sorry, thanks, pero esta bien."

At the temple today, another old guy stopped us to give us advice.  I don't think I mentioned it, but last week a guy stopped us too. At least that time he just gave us a 15 minute lecture. This time, we received a lecture AND a quiz. He would start rattling off and then go, "Okay, now repeat everything I just said." After the first time, I made sure to really pay attention to what he was saying.  It was hard, because he was old, and I could barely understand him (and he was speaking English, I can't imagine what it's going to be like in Ecuador).  However, I think I passed.

Did you all watch the "Be One" broadcast.  Oh my goodness, I thought it was soooo good! I highly recommend you all watch it!

I have one more month in the MTC, then I'm off to Ecuador! This time of preparation is precious and I'm trying my best! It's feels so good to be a missionary!

Love you all!
-Hermana Blazzard

D&C 84:88 - "And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face.  I will be no your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, an dmine angels round about you, to bear you up."  

District Hermanas 

SYL = Speak Your Language ¡