Hello my favorite people!
This week I have learned a
couple important things:
1. Family History is slightly more complex
in Spanish but I LOVE IT. This week I Had a dream about all the records I can
index in Spanish when I get home because I was so excited. Perhaps God called
me to speak Spanish so I can help out the Mexican Indexing effort later.
(Indexing is a form of digitizing records for family history that I do when I
am stressed out and is a habit that only I and a lot of elderly people seem to
have.) then it made me laugh because only I would think of that and how nerdy
it is that I am looking forward to it!
2. My ability to understand Spanish gets
better and better every single day. I am so excited! It helps if I say it along
in my head when they talk so I can hold onto the words, and some Central
American accents are really hard to understand, but how cool is that!! (Super
cool!)
3. It does not matter what language you
speak but as long as you can speak frozen all little girls will love you. I
made a family laugh so hard yesterday as I was rocking out with a little girl
to the Demi Lovato version of "Let it go." I never thought that knowing
all the lyrics to every Disney song would come in handy, but it was a blessing
in disguise after all.
My little friend named Daniel who we
have been teaching was baptized this week! He is very small and we had to pin
up his pants but it was a beautiful service. I love that kid! (There is a
picture included)
Does anyone have any questions about
what I do as a missionary or what a normal day is like? Or any ideas about how
I can make these letters better? I am open to anything!
My area that I serve in inside the Texas
Houston Mission is called Houston 6, and geographically it contains the George
Bush Airport. Only my companionship serves in this area. One of the cool things
that we get to do is go to Hispanic Zumba every Monday to work out on P-Day
because we have a lot of investigators that work there and so we get to teach
them and we work out. (I can assure you it has not improved my ability to dance
one bit!) It is really fun, and we have made a lot of friends and found many
people to teach from there! Missionaries are supposed to exercise from 6:30-7:00 every
morning on days that are not P-Day. In the MTC I would do things like
volleyball, but here in Texas Hermana Sumsion in in charge of the exercise, and
she loves to run.
At first the running was
very hard as many of you can probably imagine, (No one laugh please. Especially
you Angel.) I could only make it to the bottom of the street and back once
without having to stop. My strides are also comparatively short to my companions
who are 4 inches shorter than me, which I think makes it harder on myself.
After one week of me being here my dear Companions thought it was going to be a
great idea to run all the way to the church from our apartment. Maybe it was a
good idea for them, but I nearly died. How I wished I could be a runner like
them! Well for the next two weeks we ran and ran and one day I could run all
the way down to the end of the street and back twice, and then later three
times! Every time I made it a bit farther I celebrated a little victory. Once
when I was running this nice lady even stopped and told me that I inspired her
to work out more because she drives past me everyday to work. (Though I'm not
sure if that means my work ethic inspires her to run or if she sees the look
of pain on my face and knows she should be running if I can too, but I took it
regardless.)
Then this Wednesday my
companions decided it would be another great day to run to the church. When I
heard this immediately fear filled my stomach and it was difficult to even walk
out of the door into the humid Texas morning air. As we started down our street
I saw at the end of it looming at me where we would turn onto another street,
and then in my minds eye the next street and the next street and the next
street and the five other next streets. I wanted to sit down on the ground and
not run a single step. But mission rules say that we have to be within sight
and sound at all times which meant I was literally going to have to run
too.
And so we started running.
I got a cramp in my side like I usually do, but kept going. It took a miracle
to get to the end of the street but we turned the corner. The thought occurred
to me in my head that perhaps if I went in the front I could stretch out my strides
a little bit and my death would be a little less grueling than usual. So I
pushed in front of my companions and led the way by about 5-10 feet as we ran
down street after street. Each time death seemed a little closer and I would
promise myself I could make it to that mailbox, or this stop sign. And somehow
I kept running.
The moment I saw the
church I wanted to yell Hallelujah at the sky, but considering that I was
already having breathing difficulties I didn't. We entered the parking lot and
I gave it an extra little burst and not only made it to the parking lot but ran
up and touched the wall of the building. Then I turned around to wait for my
companions. To my extreme surprise (and theirs too, actually) when I turned
around I saw my companions panting, entering on the very edge of the parking
lot. I had out ran my companions! As I stared in wonder, I realized that the
ache in my side was gone and that I could have gone on running.
I think there might be a
runner deep deep deep down inside of me. (Next to the volleyball player.)
My friends, do not think
that I have turned into a runner. I do not tell you this story to convince you
that I am actually good at running, but because it was a miracle. It is my
belief that God sends us here to earth not to see miracles or perform them for
others, but to become them. All we have to do is keep running. Paul says in the
Bible, "Let us run with patience the race that is before us." We are
all running races in our lives, every moment of every day. Not all races are
easy and some of us struggle a bit more than others. But when we put one foot
in front of the other God teaches us how to run. The moral of the story is if
Hermana McCurdy can run to the church, you too can do impossible things!
When you want to run a
better race, no matter what kind of race or the ending destination, I promise
that the running gets easier and we get faster when we pray and read the
scriptures and especially when we read the Book of Mormon. I know that this
gospel I am sharing is true. I know Jesus Christ lives.
I love you all and have a
super duper week. Let me know if there is anything I can do for y'all.
-Hermana McCurdy
Ps. I saw a live possum. They swim
apparently. Who knew?
Ps. This is Paty and her family and the Arreola family (look for all the Mexican jerseys) and I'm sorry that Elder Pogroszewski looks really weird in it.
Pppsss. The other picture is of my CCM district right before we all left.
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