¨Yo No Se¨

Wow it´s so crazy I am actually a missionary! I forget. It doesn´t seem real at all. It just feels like I am living in some place with new people studying like always. But I am so happy here! Nothing about it is easy. But it´s not unbearable or too much to handle at all. I feel like this MTC is kind of more chill which probably isn´t good. After our first lesson with our investigator, ¨Mario¨ we were kind of dissapointed with ourselves. It was bad. So the next day Hermana Kaeding and I fasted and prayed and our lessons since then have improved. We teach an investigator every day I´m getting more comfortable with it. We thought we were doing well and then yesterday our teacher told us to read preach my gospel... If this were easy it wouldn´t be worth 18 months of my life.

I´m pretty intelligent here NOT. Hermana Kaeding asked me what a.m. and p.m. were in Spanish. I said almost positively, ´´Oh it´s Buenos and Dias!´´ durrrrrr. (that means goodmorning I just thought I´d split the two up). In one of our lessons I was lost with the language because my companion speaks really good Spanish and our investigator would not slow down or look at me so I could read his lips maybe. Apparantly they were having a discussion about Emma Smith. I interrupted and thought I would get a word in. I told our invesitgator that he had received revelation from God (meaning Joseph Smith). My comp just looked at me and said no we are talking about Emma! We tried not to laugh. Then later I was trying to ask a Latino if she were hungry, turns out I kept on saying ¨Do you have men?¨ oh wow. If I can do Spanish then anyone can.

I understand my teachers and felt better about my Spanish but then we went proselyting on Saturday. I understood NADA. They mumble here and speak quiet. I was paired with a Latina. She was so cute and sweet. We were sent up to the Mountains (more like hills). It is sooo dirt poor up there. It literally looks like that picture on my blog. I wish I had a picture but we can only take pictures on pday. It is beautiful though. Actually not really beautiful just amazing. There are a billion tiny cemets houses the size of my room smooshed in the hill all different bright colors. So cool. I wish you could see it. We treched up the dirt mountain through narrow streets. The sky is always grey here and there are a billion nasty dogs. They look so scarrry. Luckily we were with a member too. He took us to visit less active members. We (I mean my comp) taught four lessons and I shared my broken spanish testimony four times. It was a neat experience. We visited with a non member. We taught him how to pray and he said he would come to church the next day! cool stuff.

Sundays are the best I love them in the CCM! You are so spiritually fed. Which I thought I would be more of during the week days but you are so focused on learning the language and then teaching in the little language you know. But we watched the best missionary talk I have ever heard by Elder Holland. He said you only need to come home with one conversion and that is yourself. You cannot preach to all these people and demand that they change their lives and then go home and not change your own. He said ¨We are all God´s investigators lost in the missionary lessons somewhere.¨ It´s so true, we all have room to improve and be more converted. I am in the process of it right now.

I have a bipolar relationship with the food. When I got here I looked forward to trying new things and I actually thought the food was decent. Oh man two weeks later and the food taste like BlAAHHHH. It´s just kind of bland and we eat the almost the same thing every day. But for breakfast they have this really good yogurt that is like the consistency of cream and it´s tart. It´s my fav. Lunch and dinner is always so much meat and rice. I have stopped eating rice and bread because you can only handle so much?! But there ice cream is devine and I got a chocolate donut on Sunday which made my week. The coco puffs are the only highlight of my food and I don´t even like coco puffs.

No one can say Stringham here it´s pretty funny. When they say it, it comes out like ¨Stringhaahaaaam.¨ So I just say call me straight up STRING AND HAM don´t try to get the (um) in Stringum. Maybe I should teach them the silent H. I was in two earthquakes this week! Don´t worry they were teeny tiny ones.

Love you all! I´m doing fantastico so no need to worry.

Hermana Stringham

¨Peruvians are the most crazy drivers ever!!! You should be glad I'm living."