September 10, 2013
Hey guys! I only have a few minutes because my dang email wouldn't work. and this keyboard is in spanish so that's confusing. the flights were fine i slept through all of them and i was the only girl until we got to Mexico! Ha! The boys were all nice though. When we drove to the MTC everyone was super excited and happy and it was a lot of fun. the drivers here are insane! just like china. I just got my nametag. swaggy! and my companion is super nice and from clearfield, utah and is going on her mission to Cali. We are going to eat and find our houses after this. I love all you guys and miss you! I am happy to be here and everyone is so awesome and friendly and in the exact situation that i am in. also I ate at einstein's bagel at the layover in texas. yum. oh and I sat next to kayla rolfe's dad on the flight to slc! she graduated the same year as me. I don't know when my pday is yet but it may be in a week. sorry this email is so scattered. I love you all! I was helping some other sisters with some spanish words on the way over here too mom. you would be proud!
love you all again!
- Sacagawea! / Hermana Chalmers
Hola familia! September 18, 2013
Oh my gosh it is so great to email finally. my password hasn't been working so i have been trying to get on the computer for the last hour and FINALLY I am! Yeah! I have so much to tell you guys.
Well, first off, I love it here. Really. It is a lot of studying, but the time flies and I learn so much. Everyone here is awesome too and its cool that we are all learning espanol because we all try to speak spanish at meals and such. I can say, "hola, como esta" and "lo sienta" in the streets of the CCM like a champion. So mi companiera is Hermana Cefalo. She's from Clearfield Utah and went to SUU. We are the same age. she is going on her mission to california. We are different of course but we love each other. We live in a casa with 16 other hermanas and in room 2 its me and hermana cefalo and then Hermana Rust and hermana Fox. They are awesome. Us four all act like companions anyways because we are always together and we are the only sisters in our district. Hmna Rust is from vegas, is 20 and is hilarious. Shes super sarcastic and MOM, she loves Portlandia!! Yeeeeaaaauuuh. I was so excited to talk about Sacagawea! with her. Hermana Fox is from utah and went to the Air Force Academy in Colorado for two years previous. She's more reserved but is so cool.they are both going to ecuador. I love all the hermanas in our casa though. A couple girls in there went to BYU and one, Hermana Jackson, lived in the dorms too so we all reminisce on the glory days and creamery ice cream sometimes.
THANK YOU for the letters you put in my suitcase. I love them all! I have them in my photo album next to my bed and read them every now again. I also sleep with my quilt every night and it is awesome and looks super cool, of course (thanks mom, swaggy). Cam, I showed the hermanas in my room our family picture and they think you are a babe. Congrats.
So this past week was the mexican independence week so we got to party a little. The food was all classic mexican dishes and were actually all really delicious.we never know what we are eating but its all good anyways. Oh and at every meal they have bread, nutella and peanut butter. They use a spatula to dish the nutella, A SPATULA. Im done for. I will probably come home weighing 403283 pounds. But they always have great fruit and salads so that's nice too. Two days ago for dinner we had these red hot dogs. No one knew what they were but there were still good. Mom you would´ve loved them...
Again I am sorry this email is so scattered and misspelled but anyways, The friday night when we got here was ¨mexican night¨. It honestly was a full on party. All the native mexicans were going wild and had mexican flags. They had all these dances and songs and we said ¨viva mexico¨a bunch of times. At the end of the performance all of the performers started singing the sisters in zion/army of helaman song in spanish and it was one of the coolest things ever. Also, I swear every hymn sounds way better in spanish (tell gma chalmers thanks again for the hymn book!) Sunday night we got to stay up late and watch the ¨grito¨ on a huge TV in the gym. It is when the president of mexico goes out onto a balcony in mexico city and waves the flag to symbolize when they became free. We got to bed around 1130, but there were a ton of fireworks going on that were so loud. One of them sounded like a bomb going off on top of our casa. We all kind of yelled and then started cracking up. Turns out our windows were open so now we can sleep without hearing fireworks, police sirens, dogs, etc. The next morning we weren't as happy that we got to stay up late because we definitely didn't get to sleep in but it was not biggie. Waking up early hasn't been too bad for me.
So far I've seen Annie Hoj, a couple other people from BYU and Elder Tagan Johnson. I am sure Cameron knows who he is.
So my district is 14 missionaries. 10 elders and 4 sisters. I love District C! Most of the Elders are 18 but they are all great. There is even a fellow ginger in there too.
So we have taught our investigator (not a real investigator, just another teacher) twice. his name is carlos. We were super nervous our first time but it went well. It is scary to think about speaking spanish for 30 mins and making sense and also trying to focus on the spirit. Our second lesson was a lot better. The spirit was so strong and even though i am sure our spanish wasn't perfect it was a great lesson. we know carlos isn't a real investigator but it definitely feels real and the spirit that we feel there is real as well.
Sundays here are awesome and busy. Relief Society is in english which is nice, but sacrament is in spanish. What our branch pres does is every week they announce a topic like faith or repentance and the following sunday they will tell you at the beginning of the meeting that you giving a 5 min talk so you always have to be ready with a talk in spanish. We watched a talk elder holland gave at the provo mtc in Feb 2011. It was called ¨feed my sheep¨ or something and it was one the best talk i have ever heard. Watch it!
Oh so funny story about teaching Carlos, two elders in our district were trying to ask him to read Galatians 5:22-23 and instead they said 5:2-3. HAHAHA. Look it up and you will see what I mean. When they realized and told our district afterwards we were cracking up.
Today for Pday we got to go to the temple (we get to every other week) and it was so cool! Since it was our first time we got to use head sets and english. but the Mexico City temple is so pretty, It looks kind of aztecy to me. The chandelier in the celestial room is one of the coolest things too.
My Spanish is improving each day and I have definitely gotten better than when I left. I want to write you all letters so I am working on that! Plus we can test how long the mail takes.
The weather here is really nice and it rains a lot. Getting me prepped for Chile so that is good. Dad - it will probably be ready and windy ALL THE TIME FOREVER.
Marci- In the vending machines here some of the wrappers have adventure time characters on them! I thought of you fondly.
Mom- the hermanas in my district say I talk about you all the time and that you sound so cool and they want to meet you. Haha I didn't even realize. And they call my sweet sweat deodorant ¨hippie deodorant¨.
Millers- On our way to the temple we passed a building called the Cathedral of Guadalupe. Tbone!! Also tell SJ that she better not forget our handshake! I am going to have to teach it to my companion so I don't forget either.
I am happy here and learning so much. Being a missionary is hard work but it is fun as well. I am so glad I got to come to the CCM too. I cannot believe I have been here for a week! time flies! I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH.
Love always,
Hermana Chalmers / Nance
Es una hermosa vida!
p.s Hermana Orr (went to dhills and BYU) told me about mydearmissionary.com and said I need to tell my parents about it because it's awesome. So if you aren't doing anything later maybe you could hook a hermana up.
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