"OHHHH... We're HALFWAY thereeee"

Buenos Dias Mis Amigos!!!
Como le va?

Most of you are probably experiencing cold weather, maybe some snow, but here in Sunny Mexico I can wear a thin jacket and my skirts! It's like 65 degrees here and it's great! I have made it halfway in the MTC!

Tomorrow is my three week mark and then I only have three more weeks until me and my companion head to Las Vegas to start our missions for real! I am way excited :)
Quick disclaimer: I sent my sister lots of photos so she can update my blog. But I can only send you all 2 photos in each email, so if you want to see other photos go to my blog: hermanaalaynanelson.blogspot.com or you can find the link on my facebook profile :)

So let me tell you all a little about this week! It has been Sickville here in Mexico City! In my district (which is the organization of smaller groups of people on this campus so that we can meet together. My district consists of 6 sisters and 4 elders) all of us have been majorly ill with a throw up bug this week, but we are all better and ready to continue to learn Spanish. But besides being sick and learning Spanish and practicing teaching the gospel all the time, some fun things have happened this week :) So I will share some stories about that!

There is this little poem that they said in one of our meetings about who a missionary is. It didn't translate over very well from Spanish so there are some mistakes, but it's a sweet quote about missionaries and I love it and I hope you do too :)

One day one of the guys in our group who is a gymnast challenged this girl in our district to a tumbling contest (normally she is a soccer player, but Sister Brown is really competitive so of course she said yes). So they were doing some crazy things like flipping over trash cans and jumping out of trees during our gym time! It was nuts but way fun to watch!

One of the other girls is super talented in our district and so she drew a picture of all of us with our teachers. One of our teachers is named Hermano Polo, but we call him Pollo which means chicken so he is the chicken in the picture. He knows a lot of English so he always says funny phrases like "stop the party" so we have the chicken saying "parar la fiesta." Our other teacher sort of looks like Aladdin and he always says "siempre siempre siempre" which means always always always so we have him saying that. But our district is one big happy family and it is so great! :)

Also, here in Mexico they always have fruit at every meal. We always bring Hermano Polo, our afternoon teacher bananas because our first week with him he stole my banana while we were at dinner and when we got back I had a note from him on my desk thanking me for the banana. So now we always bring him fruit as a joke and no matter how much we bring (four bananas and a half eaten apple) he eats it ALL! He is so crazy and fun! But anyways, one day at lunch, they had the tiniest bananas that I have ever seen so we thought it would be funny to take silly pictures with them! We did a "see no bananas, hear no bananas, eat no bananas" picture :)

And then we had unicorns, unibrows, cellphones, guns, fangs and devil horns as a district with these little bananas. We definitely still find time to have fun here :)

On a more spiritual note though, (so you don't think that I just sit around goofing off all the time (; ) today my district had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Mexico City temple.  The spirit on the temple grounds could be felt and was much different and distinct. As members of the church, we believe that our temples are the house of the Lord on the earth and you can feel of our Heavenly Father's love and spirit while you are there.

It is currently closed due to renovations, but we did get to visit the visitor center and the little Mexican shop where I bought some really cute Mexican shirts :)

In the visitor's center, they have a beautiful statue of our Savior, Jesus Christ. They have this statue in many of the visitor's centers for our temples around the world, but every time I see one I feel happy and peace and I feel like my Savior is reaching out to me and picking me up when I feel down. There is a sort of peace and reverence that comes at these times and it is so precious to me.

This picture is of my district in the visitor's center. I love them all so much and I really am glad to be a missionary. I want to help people know the things that I do that make me happy and that make the challenges of life seem not so bad. This gospel is vital to my life and I wouldn't be the person I am today without it! One final thing I would like to share with you is a talk that we watched one evening this week. This talk is called "The Character of Christ" by one of the leaders of our church Elder David A. Bednar. If you believe in Jesus Christ and the person that he was and is and you desire to be more like him, I encourage you to take ten minutes out of your day to read this talk. It will change your life.   Character of Christ by Elder David A. Bednar



I want to add my testimony to that of David A Bednar's about my Savior. I will also try to do it in Spanish since I have some extra time, but those of you who speak Spanish, sorry if it is wrong!

yo testifico que jesucristo vive. El es mi salvador y yo le amo. yo sé que jesucristo es mi amigo y él puede estar su amigo tambien si usted le quiere estar. Nuestro Salvador sabe todas las cosas en nuestras vidas que es duré y él quiere ayudarnos. yo sé que la iglesia de jesucristo es aquí y yo sé que dios y jesuscristo nos aman. en el nombre de jesucristo amen!

Everyone please have a good week and give your family and loved ones hugs and kisses! A common phrase here is similar to our see you later alligator and it goes like this: Adios carita de arroz which means see you later rice face - hahaha

Con Amor,
Hermana Alayna Nelson