Week 7 Letter

So yeah, it’s true, I am alive. Sweaty, scratched, sore, and exhausted, but I survived. Just another 17 more months, right?

 But up, this is now my first week mark. I’ve been here (Izamal, Merida, Yucatan) (ps. I’m where all the Mayan pyramids are! I’m literally in BOM settings!) for a total of 7 days which in reality is really like 7 years. Not kidding, longest week of my life. I’ve already had two break downs. one was during estudiar idoma with my companion and I felt a little better after that but this morning we had a mtg with our zone called 8 principios and we did A LOT of role play (which i suck at even in English) and it was the second to last practice and i just broke down, IN FRONT OF MY WHOLE ZONE. It was so embarrassing for me, but everyone was really supportive and all the Latinos tried speaking to me in their broken English and all comforted me. But yeah, I know no Spanish at all! It’s been so frustrating to just sit in a lesson while my trainer (bless her heart) practically teaches ALL of our lessons. It makes me feel terrible, but I’m trying and I just think that how in the world am I supposed to talk when I can’t even understand what these ppl are saying! And when I do go to bear my testimony, it’s like my whole mind goes blank and I don’t know anything about the gospel. Like I can’t even think of anything in English! It makes me want to cry all the time. But everyone tells me that it does get better. All I’m doing is just praying and serving like crazy.

Just know that I miss you all

 I so badly want to fast forward to a year when I can actually speak to people and not feel like an idiot all of the time. And when I actually know all the other missionaries and have friends here besides my trainer. But I’m trying to live in the moment.

So yeah, that’s pretty much it. Both me and my trainer (Hermana Smith) are new to the area so this past week we’ve spent the whole time practically walking all over creation and trying to figure out all the of the investigators that the elders had before us. We are really close to just starting over but we are slowly making our way around the town and figuring it all and trying to find people is the worst! bc no one really had a specific address. It’s really hard to explain but all the streets are in a grid and the addresses go by what street the house is actually on and then the two streets in between that street. so like for me, my house address is calle (st) 17(that’s the actual street the house is built on) x (by) 26a y 26b (those are the two streets that my house is in between) so if you google map my house (idk if it’ll show up) but it’s just a little house with two wooden gate in front of it. And that’s about it. There isn’t really anything special about what the house looks like. And I just found out that mail isn’t sent to my house. it always goes to the mission office and when it gets here the zone leaders/district leaders will give it to me when they see me next which I do every Monday for district meetings. But anyways, it’s so hard to find ppl because when we finally get to the street they supposedly live on, we have to ask ppl who are sitting outside of their house if they know who they are. And most of the time they don’t know, but they just lie and tell us a random house to get rid of us. But we end up doing a lot of contacting that way. Like we got 17 new investigators this week just from doing that.

So yeah, it’s a lot of walking and if I had to guess we probably spend about 4ish hours walking everywhere. It’s hard, but honestly I don’t mind that part. It’s better than being inside. I like the 4 hrs of study time in the morning but by the time the last hr rolls around, I just want to get outside, even if it is ridiculously hot!

So my first Sunday at church was... interesting. So to start off, the bishop like avoids us, it’s really, really weird. We don’t know what’s up with that yet. And they don’t hold ward council which is a huge no-no bc as missionaries, esp when we are new to the area, WE NEED WARD COUNCIL AND HELP FROM THE BISHOP which we don’t have. But we are working on that. Then the church building has been under construction for like 2 months and the only standing part of the whole building is the chapel and so for 2 months now the ward has only been holding sacrament mtg... AND THAT’S IT! No classes. This poor ward is like dying. But it’s hard as missionaries to show what church really is like when we only go for an hr! It’s awful. But we talked to bishop and he said that hopefully he will have a building or two they are going to rent to have the rest of church in by the end of this week. Then on top of that, I had to give my first talk in SPANISH in front of all these people I didn’t know. It was awful. I’m just thankful for the MTC where they had us write talks every week on the gospel principles so I just read from that. And every church building has air conditioning... except for ours. It was so miserable. Being there in sacrament made me miss my home ward sooooo, sooo much. More than you guys know. I seriously miss seeing familiar faces and being able to communicate with people. I can’t wait to come home and say hi to everyone! Tell everyone next Sunday that I miss them all! So needless to say, we have a lot of work ahead of us these next 11 weeks.

So I’m like out of time and I’m going to try and send pics as well, but idk yet. I love you all so much!!!

Hermana Perryman

My first night in my hammock. Yes, I'm weirdly matching it. i didn't do that on purpose.that night was miserable bc i had no idea how to sleep in it, but i love my hammock now!

My last morning with Hermana Kite.

That's our bedroom. That's where the air conditioning is (best invention ever) and my hammock where I sleep every night. We don't have a closet or any shelves, so we are sadly living out of our suit cases

That's our second room which consists of our study area and kitchen which is behind me in the pic.

So that's our make shift kitchen. We haven't really gone shopping for food yet, but we mainly just have cereal and fruit. We usually eat breakfast, we always, every day no matter what at 2 have lunch with a member and we almost never eat dinner which is fine bc we are too tired to eat anyways.

And that's where we do our dishes. It's so sketchy, but I love it. Our kitchen sink is all the way outside by the front gate. So strange.

(For the next 2 pics) And that's my beautiful house. Just know that from now on out expect me looking horrible in my pics. That's whats going to happen when you sweat all day with no make up on and always have your hair up. My beautiful days on my mission were in the MTC. And those days are long gone.

My companion and trainer Hermana Smith. She's adorable! I love her and she's awsome. We had to come into Merida for our mtg and found a McDonalds and feel in love!

Me and my lovely face eating a french fry.

I finally got some ice cream! It was really good just bc it was cold. I'm not picky bc I'll take anything that is cold!

A selfie with me and Hermana Smith!

(The next 3 pics) So i got eat'en alive by mosquitoes. My legs itch so bad, but it's all still good. They don't bother me as much anymore. But I'm probably going to have scars from them, which is okay bc I've heard battle wounds are attractive.