We had our first missionary discussions

So please forgive me again for punctuation.  We have about 45 minuets to read our emails and type so grammar isn't in the forefront of my mind.

(me negro is like a compliment in Chile by the way, its like saying : what's up buddy!!) It's muy grasioso.. (funny) heehee

Okay, so there is a temple in Santiago and it's in my back yard :)  You can look up pictures and see what it looks like.  It's super teeny, but beautiful none the less, and I get to see it every day all the time!  I love it.  We get to go through a Spanish session tomorrow and I'm super excited !!  Spanish is super hard and I've kept positive the entire time even though I am the slowest learner in my district.  I am in district 9 which happens to be my favorite number which is a BONUS!!

So I got so stressed the first day here I ground my teeth all night and I had lock jaw the next morning.  But I wasn't even upset about it.   I kind of almost pretended to forget my mouth hurt and focused on learning and pretty much it went away after the second day! yay!  Ive slept very nice here and I'm so glad I had an extra blanket because it helps me sleep much better and I LOVE the dog we got at the DI.

I've had rice and chicken every day for lunch and dinner and we get cereal for breakfast and toast and ham, so I'm kind of tired of that but that's OKAY!  I'm grateful for food.

Basically how I have been learning and memorizing things in Spanish is through doing sign language Haydin taught me  I almost cried two days ago because I cant speak as well as everyone else.  So after I pleaded with Heavenly Father on how I should memorize these big long scriptures. He told me to use sign language and so I listened and WALLAH I memorized most of the first vision and our missionary objective. yay! Thanks for all the prayers by the way  I can feel them when I'm upset, which I'm not upset often, but the stress does get to you but i love it!!  Ive lost six pounds this week because I'm tired of the food so I don't eat that much so that's kind of nice.  But i'll put weight back on when I'm out probably because its ALL CARBS!

So we had an awesome district meeting on the third day we were here and when the speaker was talking about how we were prepared for this generation I thought how the prophets have prepared you (mom and dad) to teach us these things.  Having scripture studies, FHE, making us go to church etc.. was preparing us (especially us women) to be ready when the age change came and because of that I also can teach the gospel more quickly and fervently.  I love you both for that.

So I also learned with memorization; if you memorize things for your investigators, you memorize things a little easier compared to if you're trying to memorize them for yourself.  For example; if you pray to Heavenly Father to help you memorize something to teach your investigator and you think of them while memorizing the passage, you'll do it with more love in your heart, which I think helps the message stick in your mind!

Oh and by the way.... the men are twice as adorable when you walk around the corner and you see them kneeling in a companionship in the middle of the hallway saying their

prayers.  SO precious.

Fast Sundays are awesome.  We fast for a full 24 hours and the entire sacrament is in Spanish so you have to kind of make up what they are saying as they speak so it gets you thinking about a lot of things!!!

We had our first missionary discussions (they were with our teachers but they pretend to be an investigator that they had converted on their missions so its like real) and I am so blessed to have a companion that took a year in Spanish before she came up here because with out Hermana Clearwater I´d be so lost!!! But it's hard to sit and listen to her and the investigator talk and know what they're saying and the holy ghost is telling you to say something but you can't because you don't speak Spanish just yet!!   I got so emotional the first time because I wanted to tell them that their Heavenly Father loved them and through the atonement they could feel peace and happiness.  But I couldn't so I just listened.  That made me want to learn the language SOOO badly though.  The CCM (MTC in Spanish) has such inspired teaching methods.  By the way all of our teachers got off of their missions within the past year and a half, so they're pretty awesome and inspired as well.

Another thing I learned is not to slouch!  It puts you right to sleep.  A really good Sunday movie to watch is called LEGACY.  It's an awesome pioneer movie and we watched it on Sunday :)) so it will put the TV to some good use.

I also found out that there are 200 to 250 missionaries in my mission which is one of the smallest missions in the world!  It's 16 miles by 8 miles so there will be about 2 to 3 pairs of missionaries in each ward.  That's crazy.  A lot of people are inactive here so that's what we will be doing a lot of the time is reactivating these people.  woohoo!!

PLEASE PLEASE pray that I will be able to quickly learn the language.   I'm making note cards later today because I'm not sure what else to do!  I know it's only been a week but I want to speak to people so badly. I know so much that they don't know yet.  I feel so greedy holding it all inside.  I'm grateful I love everyone so easily because I can tell it's going to be hard.  People here are nice but not super patient all of the time!  But it will be fine :)

One more cool thing: there's a ton of 18 year old elders here!  Some boys here came to the CCM super immature and loud and would lean back in their chairs and seem to have the worst ADHD I've ever seen! but after 2 to 3 days, these boys straightened up and you could

at least read their testimonies on their faces.  Change is inevitable here!  It's crazy.. they open doors now and are getting better despite some things they still have to work on,  know they'll be awesome MEN someday. They're precious.  Love all the Elders!!

This letter has been painfully random and I'm sorry! They're is so much good things happening here that I wish I could elaborate more, but this will have to do for now.

Additional notes and random funnies:

Being blond in Santiago Chile is really funny.  Blonds never open doors

Blonds feel like celebrities because you have tone of people taking pictures of you, even while they're driving

I love pan!! Which means bread in Spanish

I haven't cried once

I only got discouraged for a total of 4 hours two days ago because I couldn't speak to our investigators!!

My spelling is worse than before because I'm trying to remember which is the spelling for Spanish and English!!

I love President Tew because he is worthy to hold the priesthood and be my stake president to give me such a wonderful blessing

I love saying 10 to 15 minute prayers 

Revelation is a frequent thing even if they're teensy thoughts

I look terrible with red lipstick

Sin and fish sound almost the same in Spanish and I mix them up a lot : pecado:sin  pescado: fish

Mommy I loved the pictures of you and Brooke.  Makes me miss you both :)   Can't read all the emails so  took pics of them and will read and respond eventually!  Daddy read parts of your email because I couldn't resist, but couldn't read it all.  Love you tons.  Hope your job is going well.  I'll be praying for you.

LOVE YOU!

xooxoxo

love always

Danielle N Cook

I'll type my testimony next time in Spanish because i just don't have time right now!  But I do have a testimony.. I promise.  KAY ADIOS.