Tayson: Say that one five times fast!
Here's the letter from Allyse this week, it sounds like she's doing great, and we've been so excited to hear from her.
There is just so much to say and write, I don´t even know where to being. First of all, thank you all so much for the love, support, and prayers! I feel them constantly and am so grateful for them! I am going to try and go day by day and see how that works.
Thursday - 10/10/13
It was so amazing to read everyone´s emails! Thank you so much! Also, that night, I don´t know how you guys did it, but we had hamburgers for the first time here! After talking with you guys about how much I was craving a good burger, you somehow got the CCM to serve them! Thanks! (posters note, while chatting with Allyse last week we asked her if there was anything she wanted us to send her... she asked if we could send her a good old American Hamburger. We told her that we would get enough double doubles from In-n-Out for her whole zone and ship them to her. How awesome that the very evening of our email chat with her, the CCM had hamburgers for them to eat...)
Friday - 10/11/13
For breakfast we had something really good that I hand´t thought of before. It was really chunky mashed potatoes with green peppers and ham, and it was super good! You will have to try it! Funny Story for the week - We were teaching one of our practice Progressing Investigators today, Itsvana. It was a Friday, but P-Day was yesterday, so to me, it felt like the weekend had just ended. So, as we sat down and started talking with her, I asked how her weekend had been. She had a really confused look so I repeated the question. It wasn´t until she was answering that I realized, it was Friday, not Monday! Luckily, her and my companion just let it go, but it was a funny oops! We went into that lesson planning on teaching about the Restoration. Instead, she said that she wasn´t sure about our Church because she had prayed and thought in her mind that this was a church of men´s words and not God´s. She said she is already super close to God and doesn´t think she needs a church to do that. She also went to the temple with a member friend and couldn´t understand why a Church of God, wouldn´t let people into a building where they become closer to God, so it must not be of God. We were able to have a 20 minute lesson on her questions and doubts without any planning, and in Spanish. It was great, I really felt the Spirit and felt that it went well!
Saturday - 10/12/13
Spiritual Story for the week, even though every second here is very spiritual: We were practicing finding the needs of each other as missionaries. Our teacher gave us 10 minutes to find a scripture to help the person we were working with. I decided to try the thing you always here about people doing, opening the scriptures and finding exactly what they need. I prayed asking to be led to the right scripture. I opened my scriptures and my fingers landed on Alma 10:5-6 & Alma 18:34-35. These scriptures applied directly to the situations of the two missionaries I was working with!!! I knew that Heavenly Father blessed me with that so that I could see He really is there and watching out for me! Also, today it was fish for lunch and dinner. For lunch, I got an Empanada because the other choice was fish and I didn´t think they would only have fish to choose from. I took a bite and found out it was a shrimp empanada! I almost threw up :) I held it down though. For dinner it was tuna salad, I was able to eat it and it was pretty good.
Sunday - 10/13/13
Sundays are always great days here in the CCM! It is super extra spiritual and I always learn so much! In Relief Society we had a great lesson on Agency and how we get to go and share the knowledge of this amazing fit with others. Our class with the MTC presidency was about the strength we can have through the grace of the Atonement and it was really good. We had tostadas for lunch and they were really good! We also have a ton of study time on Sundays so I loved that! Our devotional was really good. It was one of Elder Christofferson at the Provo MTC. He talked a lot about how all that I am called to do and go through can be swallowed up by my joy in Christ. For dinner we had real tamales. They were wrapped in HUGE, like 2´ by 2´´, banana leaves! We then watched "How Rare a Possession" It is an older, not the best made movie, but it has an INCREDIBLE story! You all need to see if you can watch it. It gave me such an immense appreciation and love for the Book of Mormon and helped me see what an invaluable tool it will be on my mission!
Monday - 10/14/13
Today was a super good day! After all of the spiritual re-energizing yesterday, I felt happy and excited, more than usual :) We had another lesson with one of Progressing Investigators, Itsvana. We reviewed Moroni 10 which we had asked her to read last time. She had read it and we had read it together with her in mind and we had a discussion on some of the verses that jumped out at us. She said she had read 3-5 and had prayed and believed it was true. Towards the end, I used verse 19 to segway into Joseph Smith and the First Vision. I then explained the way we come closer to God and Jesus Christ is through Baptism. I then asked her is she would be baptized, and she said yes!!! Even though it is pretend, it was the most incredible feeling! The Elders in our District call it a "DUNK" so Hermana Woolf and I walked back into class and said dunk! We played Ultimate Frisbee with our entire Zone today for gym time. It was a lot of fun. For dinner, we had jumbo hot dogs and waffle fries, they are on some kind of American food kick this week. Tonight I started to read the Book of Mormon from the beginning in Spanish. There is a promise from President Monson that if we do that, and understand what we read, we will find ourselves able to speak and understand better. So I am reading the Book of Mormon out loud so I can practice pronunciation too and I am already understanding quite a bit!
Tuesday
Today was basically the same as every other day so I don´t have a lot to say, sorry :) I do talk about the food a lot because it is fun and I know my family likes to here about it. For breakfast I had this incredible breakfast pizza. It was ham, cheese, and basil on a toasted hamburger bun. For lunch I had this really good Mango sauce chicken. Tonight was special though because were part of a live broadcast devotional from the Provo MTC of Elder Oaks. It was super good. He talked about how our responsibility as missionaries is to change, achieve and become. It was really good and spiritually re-energizing!
Wednesday
I can´t believe it has been a month! On one hand, it has dragged by, and the other, it has soared by! Today was the same as every other day. For gym time I played Volleyball and that was fun. Lunch was super good, verde enchiladas and potato wedges + an Oreo cheesecake thing! We were talking with one of my teachers today and he said that the first three months are really hard, feelings of wanting to be home are completely normal. But, after three months, he said it was perfect and so incredible. That helped me feel good.
I can´t thank you all enough for all you are doing for me and my family! This is the hardest thing I have ever done, but it gets better each day! Thank you for your prayers and love. I love hearing from you all so much! I can already feel my testimony growing so much and it is such an incredible feeling to know that I am completely relying on the Atonement! Yo sé que esta Iglesia es veradera. El Libro de Mormon es las palabras de Dios y podemos llegar a ser más cerca a Dios con lo. Yo sé que Jesucristo es nuestro el Salvador y Él tiene mucho ama por nosotros. Yo sé que todas cosas son posible a través de Jesucristo y Su Expiacion.
Love,
Hermana Meanea
Thursday - 10/10/13
It was so amazing to read everyone´s emails! Thank you so much! Also, that night, I don´t know how you guys did it, but we had hamburgers for the first time here! After talking with you guys about how much I was craving a good burger, you somehow got the CCM to serve them! Thanks! (posters note, while chatting with Allyse last week we asked her if there was anything she wanted us to send her... she asked if we could send her a good old American Hamburger. We told her that we would get enough double doubles from In-n-Out for her whole zone and ship them to her. How awesome that the very evening of our email chat with her, the CCM had hamburgers for them to eat...)
Friday - 10/11/13
For breakfast we had something really good that I hand´t thought of before. It was really chunky mashed potatoes with green peppers and ham, and it was super good! You will have to try it! Funny Story for the week - We were teaching one of our practice Progressing Investigators today, Itsvana. It was a Friday, but P-Day was yesterday, so to me, it felt like the weekend had just ended. So, as we sat down and started talking with her, I asked how her weekend had been. She had a really confused look so I repeated the question. It wasn´t until she was answering that I realized, it was Friday, not Monday! Luckily, her and my companion just let it go, but it was a funny oops! We went into that lesson planning on teaching about the Restoration. Instead, she said that she wasn´t sure about our Church because she had prayed and thought in her mind that this was a church of men´s words and not God´s. She said she is already super close to God and doesn´t think she needs a church to do that. She also went to the temple with a member friend and couldn´t understand why a Church of God, wouldn´t let people into a building where they become closer to God, so it must not be of God. We were able to have a 20 minute lesson on her questions and doubts without any planning, and in Spanish. It was great, I really felt the Spirit and felt that it went well!
Saturday - 10/12/13
Spiritual Story for the week, even though every second here is very spiritual: We were practicing finding the needs of each other as missionaries. Our teacher gave us 10 minutes to find a scripture to help the person we were working with. I decided to try the thing you always here about people doing, opening the scriptures and finding exactly what they need. I prayed asking to be led to the right scripture. I opened my scriptures and my fingers landed on Alma 10:5-6 & Alma 18:34-35. These scriptures applied directly to the situations of the two missionaries I was working with!!! I knew that Heavenly Father blessed me with that so that I could see He really is there and watching out for me! Also, today it was fish for lunch and dinner. For lunch, I got an Empanada because the other choice was fish and I didn´t think they would only have fish to choose from. I took a bite and found out it was a shrimp empanada! I almost threw up :) I held it down though. For dinner it was tuna salad, I was able to eat it and it was pretty good.
Sunday - 10/13/13
Sundays are always great days here in the CCM! It is super extra spiritual and I always learn so much! In Relief Society we had a great lesson on Agency and how we get to go and share the knowledge of this amazing fit with others. Our class with the MTC presidency was about the strength we can have through the grace of the Atonement and it was really good. We had tostadas for lunch and they were really good! We also have a ton of study time on Sundays so I loved that! Our devotional was really good. It was one of Elder Christofferson at the Provo MTC. He talked a lot about how all that I am called to do and go through can be swallowed up by my joy in Christ. For dinner we had real tamales. They were wrapped in HUGE, like 2´ by 2´´, banana leaves! We then watched "How Rare a Possession" It is an older, not the best made movie, but it has an INCREDIBLE story! You all need to see if you can watch it. It gave me such an immense appreciation and love for the Book of Mormon and helped me see what an invaluable tool it will be on my mission!
Monday - 10/14/13
Today was a super good day! After all of the spiritual re-energizing yesterday, I felt happy and excited, more than usual :) We had another lesson with one of Progressing Investigators, Itsvana. We reviewed Moroni 10 which we had asked her to read last time. She had read it and we had read it together with her in mind and we had a discussion on some of the verses that jumped out at us. She said she had read 3-5 and had prayed and believed it was true. Towards the end, I used verse 19 to segway into Joseph Smith and the First Vision. I then explained the way we come closer to God and Jesus Christ is through Baptism. I then asked her is she would be baptized, and she said yes!!! Even though it is pretend, it was the most incredible feeling! The Elders in our District call it a "DUNK" so Hermana Woolf and I walked back into class and said dunk! We played Ultimate Frisbee with our entire Zone today for gym time. It was a lot of fun. For dinner, we had jumbo hot dogs and waffle fries, they are on some kind of American food kick this week. Tonight I started to read the Book of Mormon from the beginning in Spanish. There is a promise from President Monson that if we do that, and understand what we read, we will find ourselves able to speak and understand better. So I am reading the Book of Mormon out loud so I can practice pronunciation too and I am already understanding quite a bit!
Tuesday
Today was basically the same as every other day so I don´t have a lot to say, sorry :) I do talk about the food a lot because it is fun and I know my family likes to here about it. For breakfast I had this incredible breakfast pizza. It was ham, cheese, and basil on a toasted hamburger bun. For lunch I had this really good Mango sauce chicken. Tonight was special though because were part of a live broadcast devotional from the Provo MTC of Elder Oaks. It was super good. He talked about how our responsibility as missionaries is to change, achieve and become. It was really good and spiritually re-energizing!
Wednesday
I can´t believe it has been a month! On one hand, it has dragged by, and the other, it has soared by! Today was the same as every other day. For gym time I played Volleyball and that was fun. Lunch was super good, verde enchiladas and potato wedges + an Oreo cheesecake thing! We were talking with one of my teachers today and he said that the first three months are really hard, feelings of wanting to be home are completely normal. But, after three months, he said it was perfect and so incredible. That helped me feel good.
I can´t thank you all enough for all you are doing for me and my family! This is the hardest thing I have ever done, but it gets better each day! Thank you for your prayers and love. I love hearing from you all so much! I can already feel my testimony growing so much and it is such an incredible feeling to know that I am completely relying on the Atonement! Yo sé que esta Iglesia es veradera. El Libro de Mormon es las palabras de Dios y podemos llegar a ser más cerca a Dios con lo. Yo sé que Jesucristo es nuestro el Salvador y Él tiene mucho ama por nosotros. Yo sé que todas cosas son posible a través de Jesucristo y Su Expiacion.
Love,
Hermana Meanea
We'll keep you posted on Hermana Meanea's progress... only a week and a half left in the Mexico City CCM until she flies to Chicago!
-TJ Meanea
-TJ Meanea
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| A "selfie" at the Mexico City MTC |
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| A Mexico City traffic jam on the way to the Mexico City Temple |
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| The plaza area of the CCM in between the buildings |
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| My companion, Sister Woolf, french braided my hair... when I took out the braids, I had awesome beach wave hair! |
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| The Only "Fall" leaves that I can find at the CCM |
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