Chile - Pucón - Week 4 - Feliz Navidad !!

Hola y Feliz Navidad!

Hope everyone had a good Christmas this week! 

Christmas eve and Christmas were free days for us so we just hung out at the house and watched church movies in Spanish.....super fun! Christmas eve we went and had a big dinner at one of the members houses! Here in Chile they have a big dinner Christmas eve and then open their presents at midnight! Christmas day they have another big dinner but they don´t do much. New Years is much bigger than Christmas here! Everyone goes to the beach and does fireworks and parties! Sadly New years eve and New years day are regular days for us.....no partying. 

Because of our two free days, this week was a little slow but we still had some great lessons! We had an activity with Ignacia and some of her friends which was really cool! Ignacia invited a few of her friends from school to her house and we watched Mormon messages and had tacos! We taught a little bit about the church and about what we do as missionaries. One of her friends, Vanessa, was really receptive to what we had to say and was asking a lot of questions! Before we left we asked her if we could come visit her and teach her more and she said yes! Good things always come from making tacos! =) 

We had another lesson with Ignacia and her mom yesterday afternoon and we discussed Ignacia's baptism! We set the date for January 31! She was a little bummed that it wasn´t sooner,  but she is excited to learn more before taking this big step in her life! She is so good and so prepared! She is always inviting people and bringing people to church and to our lessons with her! She is going to help this branch so much! Her mom also wants to be baptized, but she isn´t ready to set a date yet. Hopefully we´ll get one set soon!

Magali also came to church again this week with her little girl Izadora! We had an awesome lesson with her this week too! She has been having doubts about why having a religion is important. If we all believe in God, what's the difference? And if religion is important, why the Mormon religion? Hermana Vance and I studied so hard this week for this lesson and I think it went really well! Even better we had Hermana Hodge, one of our recent converts, come with us and bear her testimony of why she joined the church! It was so powerful! Magali is so good, I know she is going to get baptized!! 

We are so blessed with so many good investigators! I know if we keep working hard, Pucón is going to explode and one day we are going to have a ward here! Hermana Vance and I are working hard to teach and strengthen the members here so that everyone will be able to help this miracle happen! Being a missionary is so incredible. The hand of God can be seen in our lives everyday! This is truly the work of the Lord and it is such a blessing to be apart of it. I just hope I´m doing enough.

Don´t be afriad to share your testimony with everyone around you. whether it´s out loud, or by example, people will see and feel the difference. Everyday we get told that there is something different about us. Magali tells us that when she sees us walking on the street, it looks like we are ´walking above the ground´, and there is a different feeling in her home when we are in it. That's not because we are missionaries, it´s because we have the truth and the light. We all have it! We need to share it! We all need to be missionaries! 

This new year, make it a goal to share the gospel with the people you know. Even if they don´t accept it, the seed is still planted and you never know what it will turn into. We have the truth!! Don´t be afraid to share it!!

!!La iglesia es verdadera!!

Hermana Segura

Chile - Pucón - Week 3 - Fleas....?

So......I have fleas.....What the heck right?! There are so many nasty dogs walking around here though, it really doesn´t suprise me. Hermana Vance and I are itching like crazy.....guess it´s just part of the mission experience!

Other than the fleas, this week was pretty great! We had some really awesome lessons and a lot of drama....We´ll get into that later. 

Yesterday at church we had two of our investigators come! I was so excited! One of them was Magali, a lady we have been teaching for about 3 weeks. She was one of the fist people I taught when I got here. She is the first one I invited to be baptized like my 3rd day here in Chile! Her and her little girl both came and she said she really liked it! I´m looking forward to talking her about it more this week!

We also had a hard rejection. We started teaching this woman Pamela just a few weeks ago. We taught her all about the restauracion and the Plan de Salvación because she started talking about her brother that had been killed a few years back. We taught her that she would be able to see her brother again and she could live with him and the rest of her family for eternity! The spirit was so strong! We gave her a Libro de Mormón and invited her to be baptized next month! She was so excited about it! 

A week later, we went back to her house for another lesson. She met us out on the porch and asked if we could come another day because her parents were over and they didn´t like what Pamela had told them about her joining the church. She said that she was going to talk to them about it because it was her decision and she wanted to go through with it. 

Friday we went back to her house and knocked on the door. She opened it and ¨thanked us for our words¨ but she didn´t want to meet with us anymore. I was pretty bummed out about that. How can someone go from feeling the spirit testify so strongly, and then just shut the door on us. We aren´t giving up though. Everytime we pass by her house, we leave her a sticky note just telling her we love her. Hopeully she will remember how she felt someday and invite us back.

 No matter how much we get rejected, I still love being a missionary! Everyday is just full of miracles!

!Feliz Navidad¡

Hermana Segura

Chile - Pucón - Week 2

Hola from Chile!!!

Wow I love it here! This week has been so good! We started off this week with a zone meeting and we learned about the new video the church put out "El es la Dádiva". What an awesome video! we have been sharing it with everyone we see on the street. Its an awesome way to get contacts! Hope you guys are sharing it on Facebook! (here in Chile they call facebook "face" =)

We have so many awsome investigators, 5 of them with baptism dates! We are teaching a girl who is 15 named Ignacia. She really wants to be baptized but is having a hard time getting to church. Her mom is also listening to our lessons but she isn´t sure if she wants to be baptized or not because her husband dosen´t really want anything to do with it. Hopefully we will be able to baptize her and Ignacia soon! Ignacia reminds me of Gabby so much! Totally a free spirit. She gets in trouble with her mom a lot because she just leaves the house all the time and she is always with her friends or texting. Her mom was talking about all of this with us yesterday and I was like "oh yeah that sounds familiar!" (no offense Gabby =) I love Ignacia though, she is awesome! 

We are also teaching a young family, Yesica, Damian, and their little baby Taylor. They are so special! They have such strong testimonies and want to get baptized, but they aren´t married, and they can´t get married until Damian does his legal papers. He is from Argentina. He has to go to another city called Tamuco to get them done. It costs money they don´t have and its really hard for Damian to get work off, but miracles happen!! Last Sunday Hermana Vance and I fasted that Damian would be able to go to Tamuco to get his papers done. On Tuesday we got a call from Yesica saying that Damian was able to get work off and that he had a ticket to go to Tamuco the next day!! We were so excited!! But.......The lady that does all the legal papers and the office he went to, was sick that day.....so she wasn´t there.....big disappointment, but yesterday we found out that he is going back this Wednesday! What a blessing! Hopfully they will be able to get baptized by next month!

We are trying really hard to work with the members here, but everytime we get an appointment set up, either the member bails, or the investigator does. We have had an appointment with a member everyday this week and none of them worked out.....Its hard, but we aren´t giving up!

Saturday we got invited to go to Los Lagos to have a special Christmas dinner with the Mission President and his wife! It was about a 3 hour bus ride there. We left at 8:00 that morning and didn´t get home util 11:00 that night! We were so tired, but we had so much fun! There were about 24 missionaries there from 2 zones. We played games and wrapped up Libros de Mormon with our testimonies in them like Christmas presents and handed them out to people on the street! We also went around singing Christmas Hyms to random people! It was so fun! I love being a missionary! President Obeso dressed up in a Santa outfit that some of the Elders brought! He walked around in it for like 10 minutes just saying " HO HO HO!" Hes so awesome!

My spanish is getting better. I´m understanding people a little bit better now and I´m not as afraid to speak it. Its frustrating because I know like a lot of words, but I´m still working on trying to put them together and in the right tense and stuff......but it´s coming!

Chile is so awesome! I love it here and I love the people! I´m so excited to see the church grow here in Pucón!

¡¡CHAO!! 

Hermana Segura

My comp and I at "Los Lagos".

Chile - Pucón - Week 1

Wow! What a crazy week!! So much to tell you!

First of all I am serving in a little town called Pucón in the sector Villarica! I am about 4 hours north of Osorno! It is a huge tourist town in the summer so we are about to see a lot of people coming through here! It reminds me a lot of  Yellowstone. Everyone in the town lives in these little cabins and we are surrounded by mountains and trees and I feel like we are camping! Its so beautiful though!

I experienced the crazy rain for the first time on Saturday! SO MUCH RAIN!!! My dress was soaked in 20 minutes and we had 6 hours of work to do. outside. It was so fun though! We walk everywhere unless its far and then we take a taxi. We get a lot of weird looks when we are out walking. We also get a lot of honks.......and whistles......not my favorite part of the work but anyway.....I love it here!

My companion is the coolest! We get along so well and she is so patient with me and my lack of Spanish abilities. She's been here for 4 months and is already such an incredible missionary. Once I get the hang of things around here I know we are going to do some great things together here in Pucón! I cant wait!

Church yesterday was cool! We just have a little branch of like 35 people and we have church in this old house that has been remodeled to kinda look like a church inside. Its really small but it works!

We have so many investigators here its amazing! there is so much work to be done! I gave my first baptism invitation on Thursday and the investigator accepted! She is preparing to be baptized in January! Missionary work is so incredible!

The only thing I'm really having a hard time with is my Spanish. It is so hard to understand the Chileans.....they talk really fast.....I'm getting better though. Speaking it is a whole other thing. I feel like I don't know how to say anything and its super frustrating. There are also a lot of phrases and words that are only used in Chile so I feel like I have to hurry and learn another new language. I feel so bad for Hermana Vance because she has to do almost all the lessons by herself because I have no idea what's going on. Oh well. It will come.

Lets see.....what else....I´ve been having a good  time with the food here! mostly the sweet stuff! I tried ALFAJORES my first day, no worries! they are good! Hermana Vance loves food as much as I do so we are gonna have a good time today trying a bunch of stuff! I'm excited!  We also might be taking a trip to the beach to have lunch after this so that should be exciting!

Well I need to email the mission president and such before my time is up so I´ll hurry and post a few pics before I go. I can´t wait to talk to you in a few weeks! It doesn´t feel like Christmas here, but Hermana Vance said we are gonna do something crazy Christmas day do I´m looking forward to that as well! Also we are 4 hours ahead of you guys here in Chile, so remember that when you are planning to Skype.

Talk to you guys soon! Pray for Pucón!! We need miracles!

Love you!

Hermana Segura

PUCON y Hermana Vance

My house for the next few months!! It's cute!

The view from my house!! Volcan Villarica!!
Yes, it smokes out the top!!

Week 7 - Chile - Mission President's letter

Dear Family of Sister Segura,

We are pleased to inform that your daughter has arrived safe and sound and smiling to the Chile Osorno Mission.  It was a pleasure for us to greet your daughter upon her arrival and feel her desire to serve.  Enclosed is a picture that we took with her shortly after her arrival.  After a short period of orientation regarding mission procedures, customs of the country, etc., we assigned Sister Segura to
work in the city of Villarica with Sister Vance as her companion.  Your daughter's address during her time in the mission will be:
                                     
Sister Samantha Segura
Casilla 7-0
Osorno, Chile

Sister Obeso and I love our missionaries and are truly happy to have the opportunity to work with Sister Segura.  We appreciate your willingness to share her with us as she works as a missionary and ambassador for the Lord in Chile.  Sharing the gospel with these deserving children of our Father in Heaven will certainly bring great joy and satisfaction to her, and to you as well.  Thank you so much for helping her get to this point.

President and Sister Obeso.

Week 6 - Adios Mexico !!

Hola,

I don't have much time to email today, I gotta go pack!

Today has been one of the hardest days here. I don't want to leave, but I know I'm ready for Chile. We sent Hermana Gauger off to Bolivia at 5'00 this morning and that was rough. I have grown so close to these people these past six weeks. We have been through so much together, its hard to imagine that we won't be together anymore.

I am nervous for the transition from the MTC into the field. I'm really praying that I have a good trainer. I think that's my biggest fear at the moment besides teaching actual investigators.

Yesterday was an awesome day though! Because it was our last Sunday here, we had the opportunity to bear our testimonies. Our branch president said we could share them in English if we wanted to, but then the MTC president walked into our meeting with his wife, ( He is a very intimidating man...) and the Branch President gave us this look of 'your testimony better be in Spanish' Our whole district went up there and bore very powerful testimonies, in the most amazing Spanish I have ever heard any of them speak. I can't believe how far we have come in the last 6 weeks. Later that day, my companion and I were walking out of a devotional and the MTC president came up to us and said "You Hermanas are amazing!", we literally almost died. If you only knew how bad this man scares us and how rare it is to get a compliment from him, you would die to. We were feeling pretty good after that!

These next few days are gonna be hard. But I know I will be okay. Please pray for my district and I. Pray that we will be able to transition into Chile well, that we will be blessed with the gift of tongues and understanding. We are gonna need it.

Well that's all I have time for today. I'm off to the airport in less than 3 hours! Wish us luck! Next email will be from CHILE!!!!

Love you guys!

Hermana Segura

District 7B

Found me a fellow Syracuse Titan!! It was fun to be with my friend Trisha for a few days!

I'm gonna miss it here....

Me and my Comp!

These girls are my best friends. I am gonna miss them so much!

Our district and Branch presidency.

The best volleyball team the CCM has ever had!!

Hermana Cheadle, Hermano Carranza and I.

Las Hermanas y Hermano Carranza.

I love my district!! My teacher Hermano Carranza is on the Left. He is the coolest!

WE GOT A THANKSGIVING MEAL!!!  Best Day ever !!

 

Mexico MTC - Week 5 - Flight Plans

Hola, everyone!!! And happy Thanksgiving!

I can't believe I have been gone a month already!! Time is seriously flying by! I got my flight plans this morning and I leave the MTC at 3:00 Monday afternoon! My flight from Mexico doesn't leave until 7:45 that night and then we get to Santiago around 6:00 Tuesday morning! After that we have a flight to Osorno and we will get there around 2:00! According to my travel plans, we will be in Osorno for about 10 days before we get to what might  be our first area, Valdivia. I'm not sure if that is what's going to happen, but that's what it looks like to me! All the people in my district that are going to Osorno have the same plans so I'm really excited that I will get to be with them through this craziness! I am going to miss the CCM so much. I feel like I'm leaving home all over again. This week is gonna be rough.

This last week was good! A lot of the same stuff happening. The Spanish is getting harder, more complicated. I have no idea how people remember all the different forms and tenses and irregular verbs and all that. I'm sure it's the same for people learning English, but I go from feeling like I'm pretty good at Spanish, to sitting through another 4 hours of language study and I'm just like I have no idea what is going on.

But by some miracle, it sinks in! 

 

Yesterday I had a cool experience teaching our investigator, Jose. We were planning on teaching him about faith and repentance, but when we asked him how he was doing and how he felt about the Book of Mormon and about the church, He said he felt something different and wanted to learn more! He then said that the past week he had a lot of his friends invite him to go drinking with them, but for some reason, he felt like that was wrong and he didn't really have the desire to drink anymore. We hadn't even taught him the Word of Wisdom yet! Right then I knew he needed to hear that lesson so I turned to my companion and said "Word of Wisdom" she nodded and we taught the Word of Wisdom in Spanish for the first time! I have been studying the Book of Mormon a lot and I have marked up a ton of things, so when I can use a scripture to teach something, I can pull it out really quick. So I turned to D and C 89 and shared with him the promises and blessings from living the Word of Wisdom. After we were done teaching my companion turned to me and said that she was just about to nudge me and tell me she felt like we needed to teach the Word of Wisdom right as I turned to tell her the same thing! I knew we had listened to the spirit. It would have been so easy to dismiss his comment about drinking and go on with our lesson plan, but that wouldn't have been right. Even though we weren't really familiar with the Spanish in that lesson, somehow we made it through! After this I realized that even though I am nervous to get out into the field and teach real investigators who only speak Spanish, the Lord is going to help me through it and that I know enough Spanish to go out and teach. My Spanish is far from perfect, but with hard work I know it will come! I am so excited for my next adventure! 

 

Countdown to Chile: 6 days!! 

Hermana Segura

 

My district and I today!!

the first big nasty bug i´ve seen here ....gross!!

Sometimes the struggle is real.....

This large package of goodness is like 50 cents.I love dem.....

My favorite Hermanas!!

Happy thanksgiving from district 7B!!!
We were attempting to be a thanksgiving meal cuz we don´t know if we are going to get one.
Hermana Gauger and I are Indians, no one wanted to be a pilgram

 

Mexico MTC - Week 4 - Solo Español

Hola, from Mexico!!!!
Can´t believe another week has come and gone! They are going by faster!!

This week was great as usual! Sundays are still my favorite. We leave the casa at 7:00am and don´t come home until 9:30pm, but everything in between is major spiritual motivation!!! We have Relief Society in the morning, then we have ´Sunday School´with our district leaders, and then we have sacrament meeting with our zone where we listen to each other attempt to give talks in Spanish! I had to give another one last week! I thought I was off the hook since I gave one my first week, but apparently not! It´s fun though! Sundays are awesome!

 

It's hard to believe I can just go up and give a talk in Spanish! It's amazing how it doesn´t sound foreign to me anymore. I would feel comfortable having a conversation with a native speaker, which is actually really fun to do because they are trying to learn English here, so they talk to you in English and we talk to them in Spanish! We have now been named worthy to wear the orange sticker on our name tags that say ´Solo Español ´ on them. People can only talk to us in Spanish and we aren´t allowed to reply in English! It´s pretty nuts! lots of Spanglish going on! 

When I get on here to email I feel like I can´t remember anything we did! We literally have the same schedule everyday, but we still have a good time! We laugh a lot! I love my district so much! We were seriously meant to be together! I´m really dreading the day we leave the CCM! I love it here so much! It is such a beautiful place! it´s like 70 degrees here everyday and there are palm trees everywhere and the prettiest birds! There are like these green parrots that fly around everywhere! I´m still trying to get a picture of one! I love it even with the "cannons" outside the walls, (apparently they like to play with sticks of dynamite here for fun, so its sounds like there is a war going on outside the walls everyday....its fine.) I can´t believe I will be headed to Chile in just 2 Weeks! 

 

I love the pictures you all sent!! They made me laugh! I miss you guys a lot, but I´m never really homesick. I know this is where I´m supposed to be and I´m loving every second of it! I never have a doubt about whether or not I am going to learn the language or if I´ll make a good missionary. I don´t have doubts because my confidence is in the Lord, not in myself. I am not capable of doing any of these things alone. But because of the Lord, I am. I am confident because I'm an instrument in the Lord's hands and He is going to enable me to do His work. I am here in the MTC to learn and to make it easier for Him to work through me! I am so grateful I don´t have to do this alone! 

Estoy muy agradecida por la oportunidad estar en el CCM. Estoy muy agradecida por la oportunidad a servir El Señor. Yo se que la Iglesia es Verdad y El Libro de Mormon es la palabra de Dios. Estoy muy agradecida por este conocimiento.

Love you guys! Talk to you soon! 

Hermana Segura



The great wall!! This wall surrounds the entire MTC!
we literally can´t see anything outside these walls except the sky!
Its pretty crazy

Searching for those who need the truth!! but only at 20km per hour... =)

Our cheesy fall picture!!

The best looking sisters in the CCM!!! love them!

 

Mexico MTC - Week 3 - Half Way !!

Hola, Everyone!!

 

Another week has come and gone, which means tomorrow I am half way done here at the CCM!! Definitely a bitter-sweet feeling.

 

This week was good! I woke up sick with a cold on Wednesday and then woke up with no voice Thursday and Friday, which made it really hard to teach. Now I just have a nasty cough, but it's getting better!

Teaching has been good and not so good this week. Some lessons are super awesome, and some not so much. I really am beginning to understand the importance of study and prayer. We pray like 80 times a day I swear! you should see the marks I have on my knees! It's so good though. Everything is so much better when you start and end with a prayer.

I have to talk about the highlight of my week first so I don't run out of time! Today we got to leave the palace walls and go to the Mexico City Temple!!! (you should see the walls that surround this place...it's insane. and the giant gate.) As we were leaving we sang. Finally, they were opening up the gaaaaaaates!!!; like on Frozen.......Anyway we were super stoked to get out of the CCM for a few hours! The temple is about 30 minutes away from were we are so we got to see a lot of the city! The driving is absolutely nuts, but it was so much fun! We live in such a bubble here in the CCM, it was weird to see real life happening outside! 

 

The temple is beautiful! We didn't get to go in because they are doing some renovations on it, but we did get to spend a few hours in the visitors center and talk to the missionaries there! That was so fun! It gave me a little more confidence in my Spanish when I was talking to the sisters serving there because they were natives trying to learn English, and we are exactly the opposite, but having the same struggles! The sisters would look at each other when they couldn't remember how to say a word in English, just like Hermana Cheadle and I look at each other when we don't remember how to say a word in Spanish! It was so fun talking to them! They said my Spanish is awesome and that I shouldn't be shy to speak it! That made me feel good! Sometimes I feel like it will never come, but then I remember I haven't been here very long! I know it will come with time and practice!!

Being in the city made me so excited to get to Chile!! I can't wait to be able to just walk around at talk to everyone! Even just waving to people on the streets when we were in the bus was like the best thing ever!! I love it here in Mexico, I can't imagine how much I'm going to love Chile and the people there! 

One thing I don't like much about the MTC is we aren't allowed to listen to music. I can't tell you how much I wish I could listen to something when I get ready in the Morning, or when I feel kinda bumbed out. Me and my roomies sing a lot in the casa! My companion is an awesome singer, she was in the BYU women's choir so she taught us how to like harmonize and cool stuff like that! Our Elders in our district sing really well too so we sound awesome together! We may or may not have joined the MTC choir......I am very grateful when we get the chance to hear good music.

 

Well I think that might be all for now! I'm gonna try and get some pictures uploaded here really quick of our temple trip today!! Love you guys and miss you lots!! hug squishy and Murphy for me! Talk to you soon!

 



Got these sweet cases for my Spanish BOM and Bible
at the Temple Bookstore.  Pardon my face, I was excited !!

So, I thought the cart on Nacho Libre was a joke..
I'm not kidding when I say everyone has one of these...

Me at the Mexico City Temple.

Cheesy Picture of the day !

Las Hermanas of District 7B.

Me, next to the Basura.

The beautiful Mexico City Temple !

We have a nutella bar every day and we spread it on our bread
with canoe paddles.. me and Hna. Guager.

Thanks for the Package !!!

 

Mexico MTC - Week 2

¡Hola, hola!!!

 

Man I cant believe how fast this week has gone by! I feel like I have so much to tell you guys!! sorry if last weeks email was kinda crazy. I was just trying to get all that info down in an hour and crying the whole time didn't help me much, but its all goooood!! 

 

Well p days are the best! We kinda just get to hang around, do laundry, clean our room, play ball in the gym, that kind of stuff. It is so nice to have a break from the 16 hour study days. I don't realize how close I am to having a mental break down until like Monday night when I realize I get a break the next day! Its a good mental break down though! Tuesday is not only p-day, its also PIZZA NIGHT!!!! I still love my rice and beans everyday, but there's just something about pizza....

 

I seriously can't even express to you how much I love it here at the CCM!!! we pretty much have the same schedule everyday, but it never gets boring! I wake up every morning so excited to see what the day brings, even if its just studying for hours on end and sitting through 4 hours of language study. It's the best and I wouldn't want to be doing anything else!!

 

This week was full of excitement though! Our convert Hector that committed to be baptized, turned out to be our teacher. The first week Hermana Perez was our teacher and then, after we were done teaching Hector she was like oh by the way, Hector is actually your real fundamentals teacher, I'm just your language teacher, and then in walks Hector/ Hermano Carranza........ we were like what the heck....He is such an awesome teacher though! We are now teaching a woman by the name of Juana Maria, played by Hermana Perez! Last night was our first night teaching her and it was great! It's weird how someone can go from your teacher to your investigator, and be a completely different person. I didn't feel like I was teaching Hermana Perez, she was Juana, and she needed the gospel in her life. 

 

This work is seriously so crazy. I cannot believe how much Spanish I know and how much the Lord has helped me get to where I am. Two weeks ago I would have never thought that I would be teaching lessons, giving talks, and bearing my testimony and praying in Spanish in front of people after just 10 days in the MTC. Last night while teaching Juana, words were literally flying into my head and out my mouth. No joke. The gift of tongues is real. I said things in that lesson I didn't even know I knew how to say, but because I opened my mouth, the Lord filled it with the things I needed to say and with what Juana needed to hear. It's incredible. The feeling is indescribable. If I had to come home right now, my testimony would be 10x stronger than it was when I got here. I thought I had a strong testimony, and that is why I chose to serve, but I was wrong. Things happen here that cannot be explained any other way other than that God lives, and He is watching over His missionaries every second of every day, and He is helping us through it all. This gospel is true. I know that now more than ever. 

 

Being here is like a dream! I can't believe I'm actually on my mission. I was talking to my companion and my roommates this morning about how we are beginning an adventure that will affect us through the eternities. What a crazy thought! At the same time life back home feels like a dream.....everything is just really weird, but in like the best way ever!!

 

Thank you all for each of your little paragraphs! I would love to email you all individually, but I don't have a ton of time and I'm still trying to get the hang of this Spanish keyboard....which really isn't that different from an English keyboard.....but for some reason it's giving me grief....I will get faster at emailing eventually.

 

Im glad grandma's funeral went well. I'm sad I couldn't be there to support you guys, but I know if I was still at home, I wouldn't have had the experience I had with Grandma before I left. I got to talk to her and say my goodbyes, because I knew they were probably going to be my last. I am so happy for her though! She is finally back home! Getting that email last week was really hard, but it truly showed me the meaning of forgetting myself and getting back to work. I cried about it for an hour, hugged my companion, and went back to work and didn't think about it again until Saturday, when I figured the funeral was happening. The Lord blessed me with comfort in knowing that you guys would be okay without me there, and comfort in knowing that maybe grandma was just waiting to send me off, and then wanted to come along for the ride!

I'm so grateful for this opportunity I have to serve the Lord and represent Jesus Christ! This is the greatest experience ever and the greatest work ever!! It's hard, but a different kind of hard. Hard as in hard work, but its so much more rewarding than it is hard! I'm loving every second of it and Im sure it gets better from here! I love you all and I miss you lots, but I know this is EXACTLY where I am supposed to be! 

 

Love you!

 

Hermana Segura

 

I'm gonna send some more pics that I didn't get the chance to send last week and a few from this week! I love this place and my district so much!

The Lord was looking out for me !!

 

Me and my comp Hna. Cheadle from Minnesota.

 

We drink these every morning to help us from getting sick !

 

 

This is our room. I sleep on that bottom bunk!
Notice how the bed is made and the floor is free of clothing.

Laundry is rough... just kidding, we have a washing machine !!

Mexico MTC - Week 1

Hi guys!! I am so excited to finally email you!! I have so much to tell you!!!

First of all, I´m grateful I got to see grandma one last time before I left, and I know she is in a better place. I´m sad I don’t get to be there with you guys through this hard time, but know that I am praying for you. I know grandma will be here with me just like she said she would. (Note: Grandma Colleen passed away on Monday. Sam had a chance to visit with her the day she left for her mission.)

Oh man where do I begin!! I love, love, love it here in Mexico!!! I’m already sad for the day I have to leave. The MTC is so beautiful and so much fun! The food is awesome; I literally have rice and beans for every meal! It’s the best!! . When I got here the first day we had to like go get a check-up with the MTC nurses and stuff and they had to give me a tetanus booster......that was a warm welcome!

My companion is Hermana Cheadle from Minnesota! She’s great! She is very outgoing and excited about being a missionary. We get along well and work hard together! We live in a casa with 20 other hermanas, but there are 4 to each room. Our other roommates Hermana Gouger from California, and Hermana Rhees from Utah, are both awesome! We all have so much fun together!!

Our district is made up of us 4 Hermanas and 4 other Elders. All of them are awesome and we have a lot of fun together! We are already a family, it’s awesome! All of us except 2 are going to the same mission so that’s pretty exciting! Hermana Findlay is in a different district, but her room is right next to ours. All of her roommates are also going to Osorno! They are all awesome so I am excited to serve with them. (I’m saying awesome a lot, cuz everything is awesome.... =) )

My Spanish is coming!! Me and my companion have already taught 3 lessons in Spanish to our investigator Hector! Yesterday we invited him to be baptized and he said yes!! I really can’t believe how much Spanish I have learned in less than a week! I can already pray and bear my testimony, and I even got asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting on Sunday about the book of Mormon, IN SPANISH!! I was so nervous but afterwards we had interviews with our branch president and he said my Spanish was perfect!! I was so happy!! I still have a long way to go, but I know the gift of tongues is real.

The days here are so long, but they go by so fast at the same time! We are up at 6 and don’t go to bed until 10:30 and we are working hard every minute in between. I really can’t believe I’ve been here a week already, but it feels like I’ve been gone so long! It’s crazy

So I think you will appreciate my near death experience story! =) So Dad was right, the MTC was an old high school. They just closed it and made it into the MTC about 2 years ago. It’s so beautiful here! Anyway so they are doing a lot of work on the old buildings and stuff so yesterday we were sitting in language class and all of a sudden we hear like this crazy bang above us, we look up and see that one of the light covers is like falling off! It happened in like slow motion, but happened so fast at the same time, all of a sudden the cover comes crashing down, lands on my desk and then shatters on the ground. These buildings are pretty old so the light covers are like this glass stuff. The cover left a huge dent in my desk! I’m not even kidding you when I say had I been 2 inches further up; it would have hit me in the head!! Not even a piece of glass hit me or anyone else! Someone was watching over me, no joke! We are now switching classrooms... =)

My language teacher is Hermana Perez! She is so great! She is so helpful and patient with us. She is probably the main reason why I’m picking up Spanish so quickly. We have 3-4 hours of language study every day and she makes it so fun! I love her already!

Being a missionary is the best thing ever!! I am already dreading the day I have to take my nametag off. This is seriously the best decision I have ever made. I know it will be hard, it already has been. Learning a language is difficult but I know I’m not doing it alone. I love it here and I can’t wait to get to Chile!!

My testimony is simple in Spanish, and it isn’t perfect yet but I hope one day it will touch someone’s life.

"Yo se que la Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias es verdad. Yo se que el Libro de Mormon es la palabra de Dios. Yo se que El Salvador vive y yo muy agradecida por El." (sorry dad if that was awful... =)

I love you all and I miss you lots, but just know that I am loving it here and that I know you will be blessed. Hang in there this week and tell Grandma that I love her.

Love you!

Hermana Segura

I took a bunch of pictures with my pals here today so hopefully I will be able to upload them!! they are pretty awesome!

District 7B

Mi Casa.

Mexico CCM.